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On April 21, 2010, an official version of the consolidated negotiating text of the proposal Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was published. Next Wednesday, April 28, 2010, the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) will host a series of roundtable discussions about the new ACTA text at the US Department of commerce, Washington, DC from 9am to 3pm.

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This is an important statement by Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness. He mentions the importance of transparency in giving the public an opportunity to “understand and shape” the agreement, and he warns that a “poorly constructed agreement could be harmful to consumers’ ability to use the Internet and could stifle the type of innovation needed to create new American jobs.”

Today the first public draft of the ACTA text was released. A copy is available here. Earlier leaked versions of the text, which include country positions, are the January 18, 2010 consolidated text, a February 2010 EU memorandum of the selected sections, and seven documents from 2008.

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On April 28, TACD will be holding a meeting from 9 am to 3 pm at the U.S. Department of Commerce, in Washington, DC, to discuss the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

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KEI has issued a new research note, Comments on ACTA Provisions on Injunctions and Damages, KEI Research Note 2010:1, dated April 6, 2010.

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In looking at how enforcement norms are being changed in ACTA, it is helpful to review the enforcement chapter of NAFTA.

Article 1714: Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: General Provisions

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Just in case anyone does not appreciate how difficult it will be to change the USTR direction on ACTA, note that today the USTR proudly put this letter on the USTR Blog:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/blog/2010/march/new-information-ustrgov/acta

(Maybe best to first skip down to see who signed it).

March 22, 2010

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

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When I first heard David Mann representing the World Blind Union at the information session of November 2003 SCCR, call for the “creation of international agreements which would allow the unhindered transfer of accessible material created in one country to blind and partially sighted people in another country”, I did not know that this issue had been the subject of a WIPO/UNESCO report in 1983, which had then proposed Model Provisions Concer Continue Reading →

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 →