impose strong criminal penalties and destroy seized products; and increase the speed of administrative and judicial actions. Companies continue to report widespread counterfeiting of trademarked products. Despite continuing to raise long-standing concerns over these issues, many trademarks owners in Mexico still have problems with enforcement and case administration. When counterfeit items are discovered, injunctive relief measures issued against trademark infringers are often unenforceable. The United States commends Mexico for its effort to provide protections for patents and confidential test data, but the U.S. pharmaceutical industry reports that the Ministry of Health has provided marketing registrations for unauthorized copies of patent-infringing pharmaceutical products. The United States will work with Mexico to address and resolve these IPR concerns in an effective manner.
PERU
Peru will be kept on the Watch List in 2005. Both the United States Government and U.S. industry remain concerned with Peru's current lack of protection for undisclosed test data submitted for marketing approval of pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical products. Peru also does not provide second use patents, and no coordination mechanism exists between its health authorities and patent office to prevent registrations of unauthorized patent-infringing products. Regarding copyright protection, the Peruvian Government took some steps toward improving enforcement through its "Anti-Piracy Crusade" initiated in 2002; however, piracy remains high for sound recordings, business and entertainment software, books, and motion pictures. According to the U.S. copyright industry, piracy of sound recordings has been on the increase in the last several years and is so severe now (98% of the market was estimated to be pirated goods in 2004) that it has virtually eliminated any legitimate market and caused the remaining legitimate sound recording businesses to shut down. Optical media piracy is on the rise in all sectors, particularly with respect to the audiovisual industry due to a tremendous growth in pirate optical discs. The Government of Peru, in coordination with the private sector, has conducted numerous raids over the last few years on large-scale distributors and users of pirated goods and has increased enforcement activities. However, piracy and weak IPR border enforcement measures continue to be significant problems for copyright owners. The United States urges Peru to strengthen IPR protection and enforcement and will continue to monitor Peru's efforts in addressing these concerns.
POLAND
Poland will remain on the Watch List in 2005 in order to monitor its progress in improving IPR protection. The United States conducted an out-of-cycle review for Poland in late 2004 to evaluate whether Poland was continuing its efforts to strengthen anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting measures at the Warsaw Stadium and continue effective raids and prosecutions against piracy and counterfeiting activities across the country, strengthen border enforcement, adopt and implement copyright law amendments and optical disc regulations, and take concrete, effective steps to strengthen domestic enforcement of IPR. Poland demonstrated some progress on most elements of IPR protection that were outlined in last year's Special 301 Report, but deficiencies remain in patent protection for pharmaceuticals, especially the lack of coordination between the Health Ministry and the Polish patent agency that would prevent the registration of unauthorized patent-infringing products. The Polish Parliament passed copyright legislation and optical disc licensing regulations this year. Poland has increased anti-piracy efforts, improved enforcement of most (but not all) copyright products at the Warsaw Stadium, and has closed two
