Page:Special 301 Report 2015.pdf/70

 government IPR enforcement efforts through the inter-ministerial Intellectual Property Working Group. Romania's specialized police and prosecutors should continue and expand their recent efforts to focus on longer-term, higher-priority IPR crimes, rather than opening criminal investigations of minor violations that are then typically dismissed subsequently for lack of "social harm." Because larger IPR cases often involve related crimes such as fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering, prosecutors should consider bringing multiple charges, rather than limiting themselves to copyright and trademark infringement. In fact, Romanian prosecutors only indict a small fraction of criminal IPR cases filed, and obtain relatively few convictions or sentences. In 2014, for example, the GPO filed new 7,310 IPR cases, but obtained only 60 indictments. While industry has had some success with respect to its own initiatives to address online piracy in Romania, and the GPO took over numerous Internet piracy investigations, there have very few recent successful prosecutions involving significant pirate sites. The United States looks forward to continuing to work with Romania to address these and other issues.

Turkey Turkey remains on the Watch List in 2015. Turkey made little to no progress on IPR issues in 2014, and enforcement of existing IPR laws, particularly by the judiciary, remains weak. U.S. rights holders continue to raise serious concerns regarding the export from, and transshipment through, Turkey of counterfeit and pirated products. In each of the last three years, a significant and increasing amount of counterfeit goods shipped to the United States from Turkey was interdicted at the U.S. border. In addition, Turkey remains one of the leading points of entry for counterfeit products into the EU, ranking fourth in the number of items seized and third in terms of the value of infringing goods. Turkey appears as one of the three most prominent sources of counterfeit goods in a number of categories, including cosmetics and fragrances, a category in which Turkey was the country of provenance for a full majority (51.25 percent) of the goods seized at EU borders. Given Turkey's prominent role as a source and transshipment point of counterfeit goods, the government must make fundamental improvements in the country's IPR and enforcement regimes, including enhancing Turkey's border control measures. Currently, the Government of Turkey does not have an effective mechanism for ensuring the use of licensed software. The most recent available data indicate that the rate of unlicensed software use in Turkey is 60 percent, representing a commercial value of unlicensed software of $504 million. Stakeholders report, however, that enforcement against unauthorized use of software by enterprises was slightly improved in 2014, but noted that the system could be further improved by encouraging judges to issue deterrent sentences and damage awards in criminal and civil cases, respectively. Turkey currently shows little inclination to act on many promised IPR legislative reforms that have been discussed for the past several years. Legislation would be appropriate to improve several deficiencies in the system: the copyright law should be amended to provide an effective mechanism to address piracy in the digital environment, including full implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties; royalty collecting societies should be required to have fair and transparent procedures; and police should be given the ex officio authority they 65