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Will ACTA Mean the Establishment of the International IP Police?

By Stephanie Robinson

Trade negotiators from some of the world?s wealthiest industrialized nations are in the process of negotiating a pact that could lead to the establishment of a new kind of international IP rights enforcement. The U.S. is a leading proponent of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (?ACTA?), which would aim to establish international standards and legal frameworks for the protection and enforcement of IP rights and, if early information is to be believed, would entail surprising new legal reforms. Late last month, a ?Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement? was leaked to the operators of the Wikileaks.org web site. Although there are not many details, if the paper accurately depicts the agreement, the proposed deal points include: ? ?[criminal penalties for] significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner? (likely having the effect of chilling the activities of some non-profit media sites like Wikileaks.org) ? ?ex officio authority for customs authorities to suspend import, export and trans-shipment of suspected [IP rights] infringing goods? and ?[border] measures to ensure the seizure and destruction of [IP rights] infringing goods? (potentially giving customs officials the authority to inspect media content (e.g., music, software) for authenticity) ? ?[civil] authority to order ex parte searches and other preliminary measures? (notwithstanding the constitutional objections, making the term ?IP Police? more descriptive than may be comfortable) To the extent that the trade negotiators working on the pact allow information from their proceedings to be made public (which seems somewhat unlikely), it will be very interesting to see the form that the final agreement takes by the time it is drafted and signed. It will also be very interesting to see how well it plays in the U.S., where some of the stronger measures of the recent ?PRO-IP? copyright reforms had to be eliminated before the House passed the legislation on to the Senate. The working paper remains available on the Wikileaks.org site here.

Full post as published by Business and Technology Law on June 18, 2008 (boomark / email).