2025 USTR Special 301 Report Suggests Business As Usual For US IP Issues Amid Tariff Wars

The USTR’s Annual Special 301 report on IP in US trade partners has just been released. A huge question was what would be the impact of Trump tariffs and new US trade policies on global IP?

Clearly the ‘big’ US trade partners are still a priority in the report; there is a high degree of focus on Mexico and China for example. For China this is no change since the IP issues identified do not differ this year. China is identified as the world’s major source of counterfeit goods, but this is not new. Some of the trade related China IP issues are prioritized – lack of market access, forced technology transfer through investment policies are stressed. They were always covered in the report, but are perhaps have more emphasis now. At other times the US has raised IP barrier concerns as part of tariff discussions at least in the media, but the 2025 301 Report does not mention them at all.

The report identifies 8 Priority Watch List (PWL) countries as having the most serious concerns and the Watch List as the lower tier of markets with IP challenges. The PWL 8 are: Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela. For this blog’s our purposes focusing on Asia:

China remains a priority country, reflecting its size and the scope of the IP issues and its scale of production. The Report asserts a slow pace of IP reform in China, long-standing concerns over technology transfer, trade secrets, counterfeiting, online piracy (including streaming and device production, and TPM circumvention), weaknesses in copyright law, patent law and related policies, bad faith trademarks, and geographical indications (GIs). The US-China Economic and Trade Agreement (Phase One Agreement), has not been fully implemented they say. This is much the same as in past years, so we have to wait and see if China and US can undertake serious negotiations on this.

Indonesia is a PWL country, for much the same reasons as ever - a wholesale lack of enforcement activity against the widespread piracy (online streaming and music, camcording and software) and counterfeiting. One area highlighted is a rise in local manufacturing of counterfeits.  The report stresses the counterfeit sales shift online – something that took place since the pandemic. Significant longstanding concerns exists over lack of Customs enforcement, copyright exceptions, pharmaceutical IP issues, and patent law market concern (local working/manufacturing requirements).

India is on the PWL also for much the same reasons as in previous years, weak patent/pharma product and undisclosed data protections, poor enforcement and agency coordination in fighting piracy and counterfeiting, and CMO royalty collection challenges.

Elsewhere in the report, we see much the same enforcement concerns elsewhere in Asia.      

Vietnam’s 2024 criminal enforcement successes against online piracy are recognized but it remains on the Watch List as online piracy continues to be a problem. Other IP issues from counterfeit goods, copyright exceptions, pharmaceutical IP issues and GIs remain as US concerns.

Thailand is also on the Watch List, for lack of copyright protection for performances and phonograms. The improvements in IP enforcement are positives especially criminal and customs activity.  

Overall the report shows many common themes. The clearest IP issues listed are online copyright piracy around the world and poor Customs, criminal, and online enforcement against counterfeits which flow especially from China around the world. At a state level forced tech transfer and market access requirements that require IP transfers or similar benefits - these primarily apply to China. The ongoing US/EU GI-brands disputes in various markets could be exacerbated by tariffs interfering with trade. The pharma and medical devices sectors have many IP problems from protecting IP to weak enforcement.  

So far the tariffs issue has not really impacted IP. China has taken a bold response threatening market access restrictions for movies. Other countries including Indonesia have offered an olive branch (seeking dialogue and targeted economic concessions). So far no one has brought IP barriers into the tariff equation though.