A quick note about ACTA. There is a new leaked draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. There is an excellent analysis of the leaked text at Knowledge Ecology International (here and here).

The text is finally being trimmed down, but there are still some important disagreements. One of the biggest and more significant ones is the subject matter. The United States still favours the restriction of the agreement strictly to counterfeiting subject matter, namely copyright and trade marks. However, the European Union is still pushing for a wider application to other areas of IP, particularly geographical indications.

The parts of the text that have interested me the most are those dealing with civil and criminal enforcement and with damages. These are still largely similar, with the exception of the section on injunctions, which now reads:

[EU/Sing: 1. ]In civil judicial proceedings concerning the enforcement of {Can/NZ/Aus/US/Sing/Mex; copyright or related rights and trademarks} {J/EU: intellectual property rights}, each Party shall provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority [Can/AUS/Sing: subject to any statutory limitations under its domestic law] to issue an order to a party to desist from an infringement, including an order to prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce.
[EU/CH: 2. The Parties shall also ensure that right holders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right8]

The second paragraph is worrying for intermediaries, as it would certainly erode the current system of limitation of intermediary liability.

Stay tuned.

Categories: ACTA

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