Archive for February 2nd, 2016

Klondike Highway border by James Brooks (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/pW8DqP

The Trouble with the TPP, Day 22: Expanding Border Measures Without Court Oversight

The Trouble with the TPP series continues with IP enforcement and border measures provisions, which are illustrative of Jim Balsillie’s concern about Canada’s failure to set its own IP policy. Yesterday’s post noted that the U.S. demanded that Canada provide a report card every six months on its customs activities, meet on the issue whenever the U.S. demands, and face the possibility of a dispute settlement complaint for failing to comply with these rules. The TPP goes further, however, as it will require Canada to create a system to allow for the detention of goods with “confusingly similar” trademarks.

Article 18.76 of the TPP establishes “special requirements related border measures” which includes allowing for applications to detain suspected confusingly similar trademark goods as well as  procedures for rights holders to suspend the release of those goods. The required change is striking since Canada just overhauled its rules for border measures under pressure from the U.S. The Canadian approach did not include “confusingly similar” trademark goods, recognizing that such goods are not counterfeit and that requiring border guards (who rarely have legal training) to make exceptionally difficult judgments about whether imported goods violate the law is bad policy.

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February 2, 2016 1 comment News