rampant despite increased licensing and inspection efforts, and this situation exemplifies the case for most other sectors. In short, current enforcement efforts and penalties have not proven to be a significant deterrent. Government use of unauthorized software appears to be on the decline, however, thanks to the efforts of the Colombian Government. With regard to patents, Andean Community Decision 486 has brought the country closer to TRIPS compliance, although the Decision fails to adequately protect test data submitted for marketing approval purposes or to provide for second-use patents. Deficiencies in Colombian Government data protection for pharmaceutical products have also led to high piracy levels in this area.
Greece
On March 22, 2001, the U.S. and Greece formally resolved their WTO dispute, first announced in the 1998 Special 301 Report, over television piracy. Since the initiation of this case, Greece has passed new legislation providing for the immediate closure of television stations that infringe upon intellectual property rights, and estimated levels of television piracy in Greece have fallen significantly as a result. Piracy rates for audio-visual works, video games and business software, however, remain high. Counterfeiting of trademarked apparel is also an ongoing problem.
Guatemala
In mid-2000 the Guatemalan Congress passed new patent and trademark legislation as well as amendments to its 1998 Copyright Law. The new legislation appears to meet most TRIPS requirements. The legislation reinstated the government's legal authority to prosecute anti-piracy cases even in the absence of privately-filed complaints. On a less positive note, the amendments decreased criminal penalties in cases of infringement of intellectual property, and the provision providing for statutory damages was removed. The United States will be looking to the Government of Guatemala to ensure a vigorous and effective enforcement of the country's improved legal framework. The United States will be particularly interested in seeing the prompt appointment of a special prosecutor for intellectual property matters, as provided for under the new law.
Italy
After five years of engagement with the U.S. government, the Government of Italy in July 2000 passed the long-awaited Anti-Piracy Bill (APB), which significantly increases minimum criminal penalties for intellectual property rights violations, including increased minimum fines and duration of incarceration. Passage of the bill is a laudable development toward improving Italy's intellectual property environment, especially given that Italy had some of the lowest criminal penalties and one of the highest rates of piracy in Europe. We remain concerned however, about full implementation of this law and about the APB's "stickering" requirement; the bill does not clearly set out whether the software industry would be exempt from a provision requiring that copyright owners pay for and apply government-approved stickers on genuine copyrighted works, based on previous representations by the Italian Government. Indeed, without this exemption, Italy could be in violation of the Berne Convention and its TRIPS obligations for conditioning protection of foreign software on compliance with a mere formality. Moreover, despite the passage of this landmark legislation, piracy of U.S. intellectual property in Italy continues to be relatively widespread practice, particularly with regard to pirating video products, sound recordings, computer software, books, and video games. Counterfeiting of trademarked
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