Newly leaked documents from the European Union shed new light into the latest ACTA developments, indicating that the U.S. and E.U. are nearing agreement on the outstanding issues and that a further “technical round” – seemingly round 12 by another name – is set for Sydney, Australia from November 30th to December 3rd (or possibly the 4th). The document identifies the following substantive points of agreement:

• the footnote on excluding patents from the civil enforcement chapter stays in as demanded by the U.S.
• on the scope of border measures, parties cannot discriminate unjustifiably between IP rights and barriers to legitimate trade
• the U.S. agrees to cave on the anti-camcording issue by accepting that a country “may” adopt anti-camcording provisions but is not required to do so
• on the Internet chapter, the scope is limited to copyright on digital networks, though chapters on cooperative efforts between ISPs and rights holders may cover both trademark and copyright