Study On The Consistency Of Section 337 And WTO Rules

Section 337 is short for the 337 th section of the Tariff Act of 1930 of the United States, which is for the purpose of protecting American intellectual property rights and against the unfair competition acts during import trade. It is worth noting in particular that, in recent years, 337 investigations which involved Chinese enterprises is increasing, such as Lenovo, Haier, Huawei, ZTE and Sany Heavy Industry.As China is investigated frequently in 337 investigations, it is necessary and important for Chinese enterprises to understand 337 investigations comprehensively and deeply. Furthermore, the consistency of Section 337 and international agreements, especially GATT1947 and TRIPS Agreement, is subjected to query from many countries and communities, which is the focus of many scholars researching. This paper will then analyze the topic as well.Since Section 337 has led to a large number of 337 investigations launched by USITC, lots of foreign enterprises, including many Chinese enterprises, especially export enterprises, have suffered huge economic losses; even those domestic upstream and downstream enterprises related have also suffered incalculable losses. On the contrary, in order to protect the interests of domestic enterprises and shut the door on against foreign export enterprise products, America initiates the 337 investigations frequently. When we face this America domestic legislation, we cannot await one’s doom but try to understand, master, question and analyze its reasonable and unreasonable places. We can take advantage of the inconsistencies between Section 337 and international treaties, and force America to make amendments to those unreasonable places, so that we can protect our domestic enterprises from 337 investigations. Moreover, we should explore coping strategies to enhance the ability to meet the challenges.This paper is divided into four chapters.Chapter one is about the background and development of Section 337. Furthermore, Section 337 has been modified for four times. The characteristics during these four amendments indicate that Section 337 is the representative of American trade protectionism. Also, this chapter will elaborate the participants and procedures of 337 investigations, as well as its characteristics. Also, this chapter introduces the situation of 337 investigations about China.Chapter two lists some cases that happened during GATT in 1980 s and WTO in 2000, and then extracts the focus of disputes in every case.Chapter three focuses on the consistency of Section 337 and GATT1947 clauses through the analysis of two cases reports made by the panel of GATT and the consistency of Section 337 and TRIPS Agreement, especially focusing on several clauses of TRIPS Agreement. Finally, the paper comes to a conclusion about the consistency of Section 337 with GATT1947 and TRIPS Agreement.Chapter four puts forward some targeted countermeasures and suggestions, combined with some problems that China and Chinese enterprises meet during the 337 investigations.