negotiated a new MOU in December 2003. We remain concerned over several issues, including: the involvement of organized crime in piracy and counterfeiting operations; the relatively few resources provided for criminal investigations and raids, and the attendant lack of those activities; and the lack of willingness on the part of the judiciary to impose deterrent sentences. Weare encouraged by signs that the Duarte Administration, which took office in August 2003, has made IPR protection and enforcement a priority. The Government has taken some positive steps with regard to enforcement, but a great deal of improvement still needs to be made.
PRIORITY WATCH LIST
ARGENTINA
Protection of intellectual property in Argentina has not improved significantly, therefore Argentina will remain on the Priority Watch List. The Government of Argentina did amend its patent law to provide protection for products obtained from a process patent, implementing the May 2002 U.S.-Argentina agreement, and put in place fast-track procedures for patent applications. However, Argentina's overall copyright, patent, and data protection regimes do not appear to comply with its international obligations. Copyright piracy for all industry sectors remains at high levels including recordable CDs (CD-Rs) and other optical media, entertainment software, sound recordings, books, and films. Although the willingness of the Argentine Government to initiate some enforcement actions during 2003 was encouraging, enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting remains lax and ineffective. Enforcement of copyrights on recorded music, videos, books, and computer software remains inconsistent, and inadequate resources, border controls and slow court procedures have hampered the effectiveness of enforcement efforts. In addition, unauthorized use of protected seed varieties remains a problem. In April 2002, the United States and Argentina reached an agreement with respect to most claims in a WTO dispute brought by the United States concerning Argentina's implementation of its TRIPS patent obligations. The important issue of data protection remains unresolved. Argentina still does not provide protection for confidential data submitted by research-based pharmaceutical companies and does not have a linkage system between the health agency and patent office, which results in the continued approval of copy products. The United States urges Argentina to implement its TRIPS obligation to provide data protection and an effective linkage system to protect patented pharmaceutical products. USTR will continue to monitor Argentina's efforts to effectively address these concerns, as well as its compliance with the commitments made under the May 2002 agreement.
BAHAMAS
The United States remains concerned over the lack of progress made by the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in fulfilling its obligations to address serious copyright concerns under an agreement reached between our two countries in 2000. Problems persist in the area of copyright protection for U.S. cable programs and motion picture copyrighted works. In particular, the compulsory licensing plan contains provisions that allow Bahamian cable operators to retransmit any copyrighted-television programming, including for-pay programming, whether or not transmitted from the Bahamas or outside of the Bahamas, and whether or not encrypted. Furthermore, the remuneration system for copyrighted works under the compulsory licensing program remains inadequate and arbitrarily includes even lower, special rates for hotels and other commercial enterprises. We understand that draft legislation for amendments to correct deficiencies in the copyright law have passed in the lower house of Parliament and is now in the Senate for consideration. The United States urges The Bahamas to work to fulfill its obligations under the agreement and promptly enact these necessary amendments to the copyright law. In
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