Explained I What is the Notorious Market List

The Notorious Market List mentions the Heera Panna in Mumbai, Kidderpore in Kolkata and Palika Bazar and Tank Road in Delhi as physical markets known for sale of counterfeit goods.

On February 17, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) listed Alibaba-owned AliExpress and Tencent-operated WeChat, along with Weixin, which is the China-specific version of WeChat, in the Notorious Market List (NML). This was part of the finding released in the USTR’s 2021 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy. The list also has the domestic B2B marketplace, IndiaMART.

The USTR’s Notorious Markets List (NML) enumerates online and physical markets reportedly involved in facilitating, neglecting or benefitting from sale of counterfeit products or copyright piracy and violations. The report’s ‘Positive Development’ section mentions the actions that governments and private entities have taken in the past one year to combat piracy and counterfeiting.

The current report identifies 42 online markets and 35 physical markets as being in violation of anti-piracy and anti-counterfeit practices.

AliExpress and WeChat are the latest entrants, with China-based Baidu Wangpan, DHGate and Taobao continuing to remain in the list. The list also contains nine physical markets within China known for manufacture, distribution and sale of counterfeit goods.

The NML report states that it neither makes findings legal violations nor is it the U.S. Govt’s official scrutiny pertaining to IP protection and enforcement. The official scrutiny is carried out in the Congressionally-mandated annual Special 301 Report published towards the end of April. The publishing of the Special 301 Report is undertaken pursuant to Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The two reports, initially published as a single report, were segregated in 2010.

The Special 301 Report places countries on ‘Priority Watch List’ and the ‘Watch List’. India along with Argentina, Chile, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Ukraine were on the ‘Priority Watch List’ in the 2021 review. As per information on the USTR website, the review and resulting report is used to focus engagement on these issues. Further, it seeks cooperation with trading partners, listed in the report, to improve the ecosystem for authors, brand owners and inventors globally.