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must be granted the ability to order unannounced raids in appropriate cases to determine whether infringement is taking place and to preserve evidence of infringements as well as the ability to order that allegedly infringing activities be stopped pending the outcome of a civil infringement case. The availability of provisional relief in the context of civil proceedings is of particular importance to the software industry, as well as other industries dependent upon intellectual property protection. We are concerned that Denmark has made little progress toward resolving this issue over the past year.
Guatemala's Congress passed a new copyright law on April 28. This law, which the Government of Guatemala strongly supported, facilitating its passage so that it could be considered during this year's Special 301 review, represents an important step forward in Guatemala's efforts to provide improved protection to intellectual property, and we look forward to reviewing this important piece of legislation. The United States encourages President Arzu to sign this bill into law shortly and the Government of Guatemala to vigorously pursue effective enforcement of the new law. However, we note that many changes are still needed to bring Guatemala's intellectual property laws into compliance with TRIPS by January 1, 2000. For example, a 1992 law authorized regulation of cable television operators to protect international right holders, but no implementing action has been taken and the regulatory entity has not been established; a 1995 agreement between cable TV operators and the U.S. Motion Picture Association failed because the cable operators continued to pirate the U.S. signals. We understand that a bill being developed by the Guatemalan Government would address some of the deficiencies of the 1992 law. Also, the patent law does not meet international standards, and Guatemala has not yet met even the minimal TRIPS requirements that already apply in this regard. We hope that the copyright bill's passage is indicative of the Guatemalan Government's commitment to improving intellectual property rights protection and that we will see further evidence of the government's dedication to addressing its IPR obligations.
Honduras saw a portion of its trade preferences under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) suspended on April 20 because of its failure to control broadcast piracy. In the past week, Conatel — Honduras' telecommunications regulatory agency — has ordered the shutdown of the two television stations that had been broadcasting pirated programming. While this represents a positive first step, much remains to be done before the United States can restore trade preferences. Honduras will remain, for the present, on the Watch List as we look for indications it has taken adequate measures to prevent the resumption of broadcast piracy. In addition to broadcast piracy, there is widespread piracy of many forms of copyrighted works — movies, sound recordings, software — and illegitimate registration of well-known marks is a persistent problem. The term of protection in the patent law does not meet international standards, it contains overly broad compulsory licensing provisions, and no protection for products in the pipeline. The Government of Honduras needs to address these shortcomings in legal structure and in enforcement before the TRIPS deadline of January 1, 2000. We hope the recent efforts on the part of the Government of Honduras to address broadcast piracy indicate a willingness to move forward on other areas of inadequate IPR protection.
