ACTA the Sequel: The Transpacific Partnership Agreement

[p2p rules]

The ink on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has not yet dried and the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is already negotiating another trade agreement. This one, called the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), would cover trade in goods and services and also include a proposed chapter on intellectual property (IP). Countries negotiating the TPP are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, U.S, and Vietnam.

In the past, the United States has used trade agreements as a tool to ratchet up intellectual property (IP) protections, ACTA being the most recent and perhaps the most egregious example. This upward ratchet harms U.S. citizens by codifying harmful provisions, such as the U.S. statutory damages regime and the anti-circumvention of DRM provisions in international rules and consequently preventing domestic reform. It also harms citizens of our trading partners when their governments are forced to adopt IP provisions not in their best interest. The TPP poses the danger of continuing this approach to IP in trade agreements.

publicknowledge.org
Trans-Pacific Partnership