Author: James Love

KEI has access to a recent draft of ACTA. Chapter One, Section B of the agreement provides for “General Definitions.” It is interesting that the term “counterfeits” does not have a general definition. The ten defined terms include:

• days
• intellectual property (See below)
• Council (ACTA Oversight Council)
• measure
• person (natural or juridical)
• right owner (includes federation or assicaitons that have legal standing or authoirty to assert rights)

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KEI has access to yet undisclosed sections of the negotiating ACTA text. The text is organized in 6 chapters. The longest is Chapter 2 on “legal framework for enforcement of intellectual property rights.” The second longest is Chapter 5, on “Institutional Arrangements.” In ten pages of text, the ACTA negotiators have set out a plan to create a new institution to administer, implement and modify ACTA. Continue Reading →

(Updated March 17, 2010, 12pm).

KEI has learned that the European Union has proposed language in the ACTA negotiations to require criminal penalties for “inciting, aiding and abetting” certain offenses, including “at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale.”

The EU proposal is reported on a recent (but still secret) version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Consolidated Text, and reads as follows:

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See update at the end. ———-

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• March 10, 2010. In the Guardian: Ari Emanuel, the co-chief executive of William Morris Endeavor, the biggest Hollywood talent agency, was among several executives attending a meeting in Abu Dhabi, calling for governments to get tough on illegal downloading.
  

  Emanuel, the brother of US presidential adviser Rahm, said the industry was talking to the US government in a bid to introduce a “three strikes and you’re out” law to govern illegal downloading.
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In a stunning 633 to 13 vote, the EU Parliament voted for a resolution on ACTA that addresses a wide range of criticisms that civil society groups have made of the process and substance.

The KEI statement on the EU vote follows:

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This from USTR’s 2010 Trade Policy Agenda and 2009 Annual Report:

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On March 4, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee released its new “compromise bill” on patent reform. Senator Leahy described the objectives of the bill as follows:*

“we wanted to improve patent quality and the operations at the [Patent and Trademark Office], and address runaway damage awards that were harming innovation. We are close to a compromise that will address these issues.”

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On January 6, 2010, Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to the USTR asking a number of questions about the U.S. negotiating objectives in ACTA. On February 28, 2010, USTR responded. The USTR response focused mostly on the official U.S. “asks,” rather than the state of the negotiating text, which also reflects also the views of other parties. For this reason, the USTR letter to Wyden only tells part of the story about what ACTA may do.

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