States looks to Kuwait to intensify the depth and breadth of its efforts. Recognizing that Kuwait stands at a critical juncture in its fight against piracy, we will continue to work with the Kuwait to meet its international obligations and commitments. Steps that are needed include working with the National Assembly to pass long-promised amendments to Kuwait's 1999 copyright law, increasing the effectiveness of enforcement procedures, strengthening an existing interagency process, and improving judicial capacity to penalize present offenders and deter future ones.
LATVIA
While there were some positive developments in 2002, with some major raids on sellers of pirated optical media and while Latvia has improved its intellectual property rights regime in order to meet the obligations under the TRIPS Agreement, there remains concern over its weak enforcement regime. Large volumes of pirated products, including pirate optical media products are transshipped through Latvia from Russia and Ukraine. Latvia's record on combating transshipment of pirate goods has been mixed. The police, customs officials, prosecutors and judicial authorities have not placed sufficient emphasis on combating piracy. Industry and government efforts are underway to educate these authorities and improve enforcement.
LITHUANIA
The most persistent problem in Lithuania regarding copyright protection is a lack of adequate and effective enforcement, which undermines legislative progress that Lithuania has made in recent years. Lithuania appears to remain a major transshipment country for pirated optical media products in the East and consumers in the West. An important development in the last year was the Lithuania's enactment of regulations to provide protection for confidential test data submitted by pharmaceutical firms.
MALAYSIA
The Malaysian government intensified its efforts to eliminate the use, sale and production of pirated products over the past year. It effectively has used the Optical Disk Act of 2000 (enacted in September 2001), which established a licensing and regulatory framework for manufacturing copyrighted works, and has increased the number of enforcement officers to implement this Act. These enforcement officers have energetically raided vendors, users and manufacturers of pirated goods and sealed licensed optical disc factories for violating the Optical Disk Act. These stepped up enforcement efforts have led some unlicensed manufacturers to cease operations in Malaysia. Despite this noteworthy progress, optical media piracy, including of music, entertainment, and business software remains widespread and the products of sophisticated Malaysian pirates are marketed worldwide. In addition, U.S. industry has raised concerns about trademark counterfeiting of such products as office machines, apparel, and other goods. Prosecution is a weak link in the enforcement chain, and the judicial process remains slow. We urge the Malaysian government to address these concerns, to step up the prosecution of IPR
