Report from Meeting on 28th June

Th.Ruddy's Report

Update: 18th October 2010

Report from a civil society meeting in Geneva on 28 June 2010 about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

Update: 18th October 2010 see also the online version of the book entitled Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine (esp. Chapter 4 and pp.258-259 in Ch.10).

Update: 7th October 2010 per BRIDGES Weekly from ICTSD

Official treaty draft text released after previous meeting in New Zealand (in PDF)

Civil society concerns can be organized into two main areas:

the treaty chapter on border measures possibly going beyond counterfeit trademarks to involve a redefinition of patent infringements, and hence the exception to the strict IPR provisions negotiated at the WTO called Access to Essential Medicines (HIV/AIDS)

"In 2005, WTO members led by the EU agreed an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement" (EC)
Disturbingly a shipment of HIV/AIDS drugs recently in transit was seized in the Netherlands and 50% of it destroyed.
Speaker Sean Flynn referred to his very informative Website, www.pijip.org

the treaty chapter on the Internet possibly involving take-down provisions because of alleged copyright infringement

European Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are said to be concerned about the future of two EU directives: one on e-commerce and one on data protection, the latter including an exception for data processed in a jurisdiction outside the EU that is considered a "safe harbor", as reported ina current article by IP-Watch. The two concepts of the innocent "conduit" and the "safe harbor" for data are explained on this law site.

Speaker Michael Geist referred to his very informative Website, www.michaelgeist.ca
The Article 29 Working Party, set up as an independent European advisory body on data protection under the 1995 Privacy Directive, has expressed its concerns in this PDF dated 2010 July 15: "However the way things stand now, several of
the proposed measures are in the end bound to interfere with the private life of many citizens".

Speakers from China, Pakistan and India (appearing in their personal capacity) were generally critical of the ACTA negotiations, in which their countries are not included. China and India are bringing a complaint to this effect at the WTO. The WTO was represented on the programme; WIPO was said to have declined an invitation by the co-organizer www.keionline.org

Speaker Viviana Muñoz Tellez from the South Centre presented an interesting table of related initiatives (which is reproduced approximately below):

WHO	WTO TRIPs Council Dispute Settlement Mechanism	Bilaterals
OECD	TRIPs	U.S. Sp. 301 Report
Interpol	G-8	World Customs Organization
Global Congress on Anti-counterfeiting and Piracy	ACTA	Universal Postal Union

Counterfeit medicines are a growing threat according to:

Updated: 7th October 2010

Surf back up to http://www.wsis.ethz.ch/seri.htm SERI member page Thomas Ruddy

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