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Thursday January 27, 2011 |
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The European Commission has revealed that it is currently being sued over ACTA secrecy. In October
2010, MEP Marietje Schaake asked several
questions of the EC including one on non-transparency. The EC's response
now includes "since this issue is currently the object of a court case
lodged by an Member of the European Parliament against the Commission,
the Commission does not wish to address the question in more detail at
this stage."
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Wednesday December 22, 2010 |
The Guardian has posted two Wikileaks cables that focus on the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The first
is from Italy in November 2008.
It provides a useful reminder that the U.S. at one time hoped to
conclude the ACTA negotiations by the end of 2008 (and the George Bush
term). The cable quotes the Italian head of the IP office within
the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that timeline was unrealistic:
European countries are likely to ask
for a slowdown in negotiations because of opposition to the EU
commission's involvement in negotiating portions of the treaty,
disagreements over the confidentiality level of the negotiations, and
the absence of geographical indications from the agreement.
The official also noted opposition among member states with the
European Commission negotiating criminal matters and ongoing
frustration with the level of secrecy associated with ACTA that made it
impossible to properly consult stakeholders:
The level of confidentiality in these
ACTA negotiations has been set at a higher level than is customary for
non-security agreements. According to Mazza, it is impossible for
member states to conduct necessary consultations with IPR stakeholders
and legislatures under this level of confidentiality. He said that
before the next round of ACTA discussions, this point will have to be
renegotiated.
The official characterized ACTA as "TRIPS Plus" and noted (correctly)
that geographic indications was likely to become a major sticking point.
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Friday December 17, 2010 |
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The USTR has launched a public request
for comments
on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. There has been no
indication from Canadian officials about possible meetings or
consultations.
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Tuesday December 14, 2010 |
The Australian Government's Productivity Commission, which is the
government's independent research and advisory body on a range of
economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of
Australians, has released a new
report
on the impact of bilateral and regional trade agreements. The
report,
which contains some key lessons for Canada given our current trade
negotiations activities with Europe, India, and South American
countries, warns against the inclusion of intellectual property within
these trade agreements. The report concludes:
The Commission considers that
Australia should not generally seek to include IP provisions in further
BRTAs, and that any IP provisions that are proposed for a particular
agreement should only be included after an economic assessment of the
impacts, including on consumers, in Australia and partner countries. To
safeguard against the prospect that acceptance of ‘negative sum game’
proposals, the assessment would need to find that implementing the
provisions would likely generate overall net benefits for members of
the agreement.
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