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Divisions Between US and EU Begin to Appear Over ACTA

By Michael Geist

A recent issue of Inside US Trade featured a detailed report (sub required) on the European Union positions in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations.  The article cites comments from Pedro Velasco Martins, an EU official involved in the ACTA negotiations and points to several areas of disagreement:

1. The scope of ACTA coverage.  The Europeans would like to extend ACTA to patents.  Canadian officials are known to want to limit it to copyright and trademark.
2. Anti-camcording provisions.  The Europeans are not supportive of a specific anti-camcording provisions.  The U.S. obviously is and pressured Canada to enact such a provision in 2007.
3. Dispute Resolution.  The Europeans prefer a "peer review" approach to review compliance.  Other countries are known to support a judicial process complete with penalties for non-compliance.
4. Internet provisions.  The Europeans are not prepared to go beyond existing EU law of any Internet provisions.  This potential makes the European Parliament's support to block a three strikes system important.

These divisions point to the value of more countries entering into the negotiations as that will provide a greater diversity of views at the table.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).