Zone in Brazil, among others. The United States urges all countries having free trade zones located within their territories to bring the operation of the free trade zones under the rule of law and its consistent application. The United States is working with Panama through the FTA negotiations to strengthen IPR enforcement in Panama's Free Zones.
Controlling Optical Media Production
Over the past year some of our trading partners, such as the Philippines, Poland, and Indonesia, have taken important steps toward implementing much-needed controls on optical media production in order to address and prevent future pirate activity. We have seen particular progress this year in the Philippines' enforcement of its optical media law. However, other countries urgently need to implement controls or improve existing inadequate measures, including India, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, and Bulgaria, none of which have made sufficient progress in this regard. Some governments, such as those of Hong Kong and Macau, which implemented optical media controls in previous years, have clearly demonstrated their commitment to continue to enforce these measures. Malaysia is steadily improving its enforcement efforts, and Taiwan continues to make significant progress in providing improved IPR enforcement. The effectiveness of such measures is underscored by the direct experience of these governments in successfully reducing pirate production of optical media. We continue to urge our trading partners facing the threat of pirate optical media production within their borders to adopt similar controls or aggressively enforce existing regulations in the coming year.
Implementation of the WTO TRIPS Agreement
One of the most significant achievements of the Uruguay Round was the negotiation of the TRIPS Agreement, which requires all WTO Members to provide certain minimum standards of protection for patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, geographical indications, and other forms of intellectual property. The Agreement also requires countries to provide effective IPR enforcement. The TRIPS Agreement is the first broadly-subscribed multilateral intellectual property agreement that is subject to mandatory dispute settlement provisions.
Developed countries were required to fully implement the TRIPS Agreement as of January 1, 1996, while developing countries were given a transition period for many obligations until January 1, 2000. Ensuring that developing countries are in full compliance with the TRIPS Agreement obligations now that this transition period has come to an end is one of this Administration's highest IPR priorities. The least-developed countries have until January 1, 2006 to implement the TRIPS Agreement, and the United States looks forward to the successful completion of this transition. However, in order to address the concerns raised by the least-developed countries, the United States suggested, and all other WTO members agreed, to extend the transition period for ten years, until 2016, for the least-developed countries to implement their TRIPS obligations for patent and data protection for pharmaceutical products.
Developing countries continue to make progress toward full implementation of their TRIPS obligations. Nevertheless, certain countries are still in the process of finalizing implementing legislation and establishing adequate IPR enforcement mechanisms. Every year the U.S. Government provides extensive technical assistance and training on the implementation of the
