The UAE has been removed from the US Special 301 watch list of countries monitored for violations of intellectual property rights, a senior Business Software Alliance (BSA) official was quoted Wednesday by the Gulf News Daily.
Despite earlier recommendations from the US software lobby and admissions that the UAE had reduced piracy below the European level, the UAE was retained on the watch list until this year, said the daily.
BSA's trade representative in the UAE, quoted by the Gulf News said that "the UAE has recently provided a written commitment to take specific steps to assure adequate and effective protection of patented products.
These include specific commitments on trips implementation, data protection and not providing marketing approval for unauthorized copies of patented products.
According to a statement issued Thursday by the BSA, "the United Arab Emirates leads the way within the region, having reduced its own piracy rate from 88% to 60% in only two years."
The result has been the UAE in general, and Dubai in particular, has become the IT capital of the Middle East and is home to many of the world's leading IT companies, said the statement - (Several Sources)
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