301 Nintendo of America 2013 FINAL With Signature

1February 8, 2013Mr. Stanford McCoyAssistant U.S. Trade RepresentativeFor Intellectual Property and InnovationOffice of the United States Trade Representative600 17

Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20508Re:

2013

Special 301 Comments on Piracy of

Nintendo

Video Game Products

Dear Mr. McCoy:Nintendo of America Inc. (Nintendo) submits this letter in response to the “Request for WrittenSubmissions From the Public” which appeared in the December 31, 2012 Federal Register. Inthat notice, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) requested commentspursuant to Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2242), known as “Special 301,” on“countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or denyfair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection.”Nintendo has provided information to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA)which is included in the filing of that organization. Nintendo is associated with the IIPA throughits membership in the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). This letter provides moredetailed information on piracy of

Nintendo

video game products, with an emphasis on Internetpiracy, along with Nintendo’s Special 301 placement recommendations.Nintendo, along with its publishers and developers, is injured by the prevalence and ease of illegal online distribution, as well as the continued manufacture, assembly, distribution, import,export and sale of counterfeit

Nintendo

video game products across the globe. In the past fewyears, the scope of online piracy for Nintendo has grown dramatically. Every month tens of thousands of illegal

Nintendo

game files are detected on the Internet. The legal environment tolimit the flow of these files remains extremely challenging.Theft of

Nintendo’s

video games illegally shared over the Internet impacts all who create,develop, market and sell video games for the

Wii U

Wii

Nintendo 3DS

and the

Nintendo DS

2family of handheld systems. Surging Internet piracy continues to result in lost sales, lost jobs,lost taxes for local, state and national governments, as well as the loss of incentives to createand innovate.Despite the operation of Nintendo’s anti-piracy programs in over 40 countries, worldwidepiracy of

Nintendo

video game products remains a chronic problem resulting in huge losses.Special 301 has proven to be a highly effective tool in highlighting those countries that do notprovide adequate protection of copyrights and trademarks.For 2013, Nintendo recommends that USTR designate: (1) Brazil remain on the Watch List; (2)China for monitoring under Section 306 of the Trade Act and continued placement on thePriority Watch List;

(3) Mexico remain on the Watch List; and (4) Spain to be elevated to theWatch List.

NINTENDO OF AMERICA INC.

Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Washington, serves as headquarters forNintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere and markets the highly successful line of

Nintendo

video game products. Nintendo has branch offices in Redwood City, California andNew York, New York. Also located on Nintendo’s campus in Redmond is Nintendo SoftwareTechnology Corporation which creates game software for

Nintendo’s

video game systems. In1999, Retro Studios was founded in Austin, Texas as a sister-company to Nintendo of AmericaInc. Retro is a development studio dedicated to creating products for Nintendo. Nintendoholds the company’s intellectual property rights, including copyrights and trademarks, in theWestern Hemisphere. In addition, Nintendo coordinates the worldwide anti-piracy program onbehalf of its parent company, Nintendo Co. Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan.

Nintendo

video game hardware platforms (i.e.

Wii U

Wii

Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi

and

Nintendo 3DS

) play Nintendo’s proprietary game software as well as proprietary game softwarecreated by its third party licensees. Hundreds of U.S. companies independently create, license,market and sell

Nintendo

video game products. Worldwide piracy of

Nintendo

products alsoadversely affects the earnings and employment of these companies.

Table of Contents

Nintendo Video Game Products

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Internet Piracy and Circumvention Devices

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Nintendo Infringing Hard Goods

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35