near term to provide adequate protection of pharmaceutical test data from unfair commercial use. We encourage Korea to improve coordination between the Korean health and patent authorities to prevent marketing authorizations of patent-infringing products. We welcome the progress that Korea has made, will closely monitor to ensure that the pending copyright legislation is implemented with appropriate safeguards to prevent the erosion of these or other rights, and look forward to future improvements to Korea's IPR regime.
LATVIA
Latvia made improvements to its IPR legislative framework in 2004, but needs to follow through with its commitments to strengthen IPR enforcement. Latvia will be maintained on the Watch List in 2005 to monitor its enforcement activities. Latvia continues to be a significant consumer of and transshipment market for pirated goods, especially from Russia. Piracy levels for motion pictures, records, music, and entertainment software remain high, and Internet piracy is growing in the areas of music hosting, entertainment software, and pirated video games. The lack of effective border enforcement continues to be a key problem in Latvia. Customs officials are not taking sufficient action to inspect or seize shipments of pirated audio CDs, CD-ROMS containing business software, videos, and audio cassettes coming into Latvia from Lithuania, Russia and elsewhere. Such goods are then transshipped to the rest of the European Union. We recommend that Latvia coordinate with neighboring customs officials, provide training for Latvian customs officials, and increase its commitment of resources to address the enforcement problem effectively. Latvia improved its IPR protection during the past year, passing Latvian Copyright Law amendments that implemented the WIPO Internet Treaties. Substantive problems remain, however, such as the lack of civil ex parte searches. The United States encourages Latvia to demonstrate its commitment to IPR enforcement by strengthening and investing adequate resources in its customs border enforcement activities.
LITHUANIA
Despite Lithuania's progress in improving its legal framework for protecting IPR and fighting software piracy, we are maintaining Lithuania on the Watch List in 2005 to monitor some key issues. Optical media piracy levels remain high in Lithuania, which is a central transshipment point in the Baltic region for mostly Russian-produced optical media to the rest of Europe. The lack of IPR enforcement by customs officials remains troubling, along with the lack of deterrent sentences imposed by courts. The U.S. copyright industry reports significant copyright problems in the areas of border enforcement, optical media piracy, and Internet piracy (particularly with the sale of pre-recorded CDs and CD-Rs over the Internet). High rates of piracy also are reported in the sectors of music (pirated CDs and CD-Rs), entertainment and business software, and motion pictures (pirate videocassettes, home-burned optical discs, and television and local cable piracy). While we commend Lithuania for its IPR legislative progress, we note that some deficiencies remain in its copyright law. The United States also urges Lithuania to implement optical media rules that regulate the production, distribution, and export of optical media effectively. In addition, we urge Lithuania to implement its regulation on government use of legitimate software. The United States also encourages Lithuania to direct its attention and resources to increasing its anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting efforts by coordinating among relevant government ministries, police, and customs officials.
MALAYSIA
