to act quickly to revise IPR legislation to provide for, inter alia, penalties sufficiently deterrent to reduce the level of piracy and counterfeiting (including higher fines and longer prison sentences) and greater access for litigants to court proceedings at all stages of the judicial process.
SLOVAK REPUBLIC
The Slovak Republic fails to provide adequate and effective protection for confidential pharmaceutical test data submitted to obtain marketing approval. The six-year period of protection for confidential test data submitted for marketing approval in the Slovak Republic is reduced to the extent the data was submitted earlier in an EU member state. This is a shortcoming which greatly diminishes the protection of confidential test data.
TAJIKISTAN
Tajikistan has yet to fulfill all of its intellectual property rights commitments under the 1993 U.S.-Tajikistan Trade Agreement. Specifically, Tajikistan is not yet a party to the Geneva Phonograms Convention. In addition, Tajikistan is not providing any protection or rights to U.S. and other foreign sound recordings, nor does it clearly provide retroactive protection for works or sound recordings under its Copyright Law. Criminal penalties for intellectual property rights violations have not yet been adopted as required by the bilateral trade agreement. In general, there is weak enforcement of intellectual property rights in Tajikistan.
THAILAND
Overall, Thailand has made incremental progress on IPR issues. Pirate optical media production, distribution and export is a significant and growing problem facing U.S. copyright industries. Industry estimates a 300 percent increase in pirate optical disk plants operating in Thailand from 1999. Industry asserts that Thailand has become a primary destination for criminal organizations seeking new bases of operation as controls on illicit wares tighten around the region. Further complicating the protection of IPR in Thailand is the fact that end-user piracy of business software is endemic, perhaps as high as 76 percent, according to industry estimates. Thailand's Central Intellectual Property Court remains a bright spot in the country's efforts to safeguard IPR. The Court's overall effectiveness, however, is hampered by judicial delays, limited resources, and a lack of deterrent sentencing. Key high level Thai Government officials have recently demonstrated a troubling lack of support for the officers of the court and especially the relevant law enforcement agencies.
While the United States recognizes some progress has been made in the past year, the significant and growing problems of optical media production and end-user piracy of business software remain largely unaddressed. For these reasons, the United States will re-evaluate Thailand's IPR situation during an out-of-cycle Review to be conducted in the Fall. The OCR will focus on Thailand's progress in passing and implementing a satisfactory optical media bill; in implementing the Trade Secrets Act in a
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