Original news and analysis on international IP policy
In time for the start of the third round of trade negotiations between the United States and European Union, EU transparency organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published the first interesting leak on the substance of the talks.
The intellectual property offices of Korea and China today announced they have signed a cooperation agreement on work-sharing, communication, and new areas of IP, including the commercial use of IP rights such as transactions involving patents.
Following the public outcry over the EU’s demands for stringent intellectual property rules that would dramatically raise medicines prices in India, you would expect the EU to think twice about making similar demands in future trade agreements, particularly with low- and middle-income countries. Yet, this is precisely what is going on now in the negotiations for a free trade agreement between the EU and Thailand, writes Tessel Mellema.
Trade ministers of the 12 countries negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) today issued a statement signalling a breakthrough on the treaty, but lacking specifics.
The far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement may be even more ambitious than previously thought. A newly leaked alleged recent memorandum and chart giving a rare view of country positions from inside the closed negotiating room showed the 12 countries to be far apart on many issues, especially intellectual property rights, heading into this week’s talks in Singapore. And they suggest the United States is facing pushback to its vigorous efforts to get those differences resolved quickly.
Intellectual Property Watch has been working to make more information public about US government involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement under negotiation with 11 other countries.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) yesterday issued a statement on the status of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement talks on intellectual property rights and public health, suggesting that it has put forward new ideas on the issue. The statement is worded to reflect that USTR has heard the concerns of other governments and of public health advocates, but it's unclear if those groups will accept it.
Developing countries have been under pressure for years to join the global intellectual property system established by developed countries, and they have been doing so gradually. But now the leading emerging economies have taken matters into their own hands and signed an IP cooperation roadmap among themselves that will boost their uptake of IP in a way that is most favourable to them.
For years, the United States and partner governments have worked vigorously to keep the publics they represent from knowing what they are negotiating behind closed doors in the top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. But today’s Wikileaks release of the draft intellectual property chapter blew that up, confirming the fears of public interest groups that this is an agreement heavily weighted toward big industry interests.
Countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement have undertaken an intensive series of negotiating meetings on specific topics over the coming month, ending with a meeting of chief negotiators and key experts in late November.
A new caucus of supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement under negotiation was launched yesterday in the US Congress.
Infojustice.org writes: On August 28, a group of members of the Peruvian legislature – the Parlamentario Acción Popular-Frente Amplio – proposed a motion that asks for greater transparency in the Trans Pacific Partnership Negotiations. Specifically, the motion seeks “a public, political, and technical debate on the proposals of the Trans-pacific Partnership” and requests “the Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism and the technical team in charge of the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations to report on the matter.”