Bolivia and imported into the country with impunity, despite efforts by a new national customs service to control contraband at Bolivia's borders and ports of entry. Legislation to meet Bolivia's TRIPS Agreement obligations is still pending before the Bolivian Congress, and may not be fully consistent with TRIPS Agreement obligations. With respect to patents, Bolivian officials have stated that Bolivia will comply with the provisions of the revised Andean Community Decision 344, but that Decision has not yet been brought into conformity with the TRIPS Agreement. We will continue to consult informally with Andean Community governments in an effort to encourage them to resolve the outstanding TRIPS compliance concerns as soon as possible in the coming months.
Brazil: Brazil made substantial progress on an April 1998 commitment to process pipeline applications in an expedited manner, and it has significantly increased the rate at which it processes regular patent applications. However, in 1999 the Brazilian Government issued a Medida Provisoria which contains some problematic provisions related to issuance of pharmaceutical patents. Progress has not been sufficient on Brazil's commitment to increase effective enforcement actions, from raids through judicial decisions, against intellectual property infringement; the rate of CD piracy in Brazil continues to worsen. Failure to address this problem could lead to the collapse of the market for legitimate CDs in Brazil. We look to Brazil to significantly increase its enforcement efforts against video, music CD, video game, as well as other piracy in the coming year, consistent with its WTO obligations. We hope that the newly-formed inter-ministerial IPR task force will prove effective in this regard. Ambassador Barshefsky also announced that the United States was requesting WTO dispute settlement consultations to address concern over the "local working" requirement in Brazil's 1996 industrial property law.
Canada: A WTO dispute settlement panel recently confirmed that Canada's patent law fails to grant a full twenty-year patent term to certain patents as required by the TRIPS Agreement. In 1999, Ambassador Barshefsky announced initiation of WTO dispute settlement proceedings to address this situation. The United States looks to the Government of Canada to comply swiftly with the panel's ruling and bring its patent regime into compliance with Canada's international obligations before further losses are suffered by patent owners in Canada. In 1997, the Government of Canada adopted amendments to its copyright law that discriminate against the interests of some U.S. copyright holders. Canada has established a right of remuneration for the public performance of sound recordings and performances. It also has established a levy on blank audio recording media, the revenues from which are intended to compensate performers and producers for the performance and unauthorized home-taping of their works in Canada. The United States remains extremely concerned that U.S. performers and record producers are denied national treatment with respect to both these provisions and also that the remuneration right for public performances does not give producers and performers exclusive rights over on-demand and interactive uses. We will closely monitor their implementation and any future reform of Canada's copyright laws. More recently, U.S. industry has expressed concern over specific deficiencies in Canada's enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting, particularly at the border. We urge the Government of Canada to address these concerns this year.
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