The United States has excluded South Korea from its intellectual property rights watch list for the fifth straight year.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) removed South Korea from its Special 301 Report in 2009. The report includes a list of Priority Foreign Countries, which are nations assessed to have inadequate intellectual property laws, as well as a Priority Watch List and a Watch List that contains countries whose intellectual property regimes are deemed a concern.

The trade office designated Ukraine as a Priority Foreign Country in its 2013 Special 301 Report and included ten countries in its Priority Watch List, including China, Russia, Algeria and Argentina.

It marked the 16th year for Russia to be included in the Priority Watch List and the ninth year for China.