USTR FOIA, 127 pages of emails between industry and USTR TPP negotiators

Earlier this year, IP-Watch submitted two FOIA requests to USTR about the TPP negotiation. I am attaching two letters from USTR to IP-Watch about the FOIAs, and a file with 127 pages of emails between USTR and various industry lobbyists. (USTR provided KEI with copies of the files provdied to IP-Watch as part a separate KEI FOIA to USTR regarding communications involving the TPP).

A lot has clearly been withheld by USTR. According to USTR’s June 19, 2013 letter to IP-Watch

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GE’s Thaddeus Burns wrote to US Ambassador Betty King requesting US postpone Marrakesh Diplomatic Conference

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Thaddeus Burns of GE spent months trying to derail the WIPO treaty for the blind negotiations
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The letter opposing the treaty for the blind was signed by TABC Director General Tim Bennett

We just ran across this mean spirited letter by the Trans-Atlantic Business Council (TABC), a group that describes itself as follows:

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EPO and OHIM publish misleading report on intellectual property rights intensive industries in EU economy

In 2012 the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a study titled “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus” which estimated the number of jobs if various “IP intensive” industries. The study was immediately panned by critics for its broad definitions — grocery stores were the top “ip intensive industry” in the United States, but it became a source of go-to-statistics for every PhRMA and publisher lobby group pushing new privileges and subsidies. (Commentary here: /node/1432)

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Previous draft treaty texts

2009 SCCR 18, May 25 to May 29, 2009. At this meeting, Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay introduced formally the proposal that the World Blind Union had drafted in 2008. Proposal by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, Relating to Limitations and Exceptions:… Continue Reading