The legislative process has been likened to sausage-making -- too messy for anyone with a delicate stomach to watch. But as became apparent with the way recent revisions to the Copyright Law were handled by the Legislative Yuan (LY), lack of transparency in the lawmaking process can lead to even less appetizing results.

The Executive Yuan last year drafted a reasonable bill, based on spadework done by the Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). One of the major objectives was to tighten intellectual property enforcement sufficiently to satisfy the United States government to remove Taiwan from the 301 Watch List. After reaching the LY and passing through an uneventful first reading, the bill was sent to the Economics and Energy Committee (the unit normally responsible for IPR matters) for handling jointly with the Sci-Tech and Information Committee, which had also expressed an interest in the proposed legislation. Both committees held public hearings during the spring.