Today Representative Darrell Issa has issued a press release blasting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Issa notes that the agreement was negotiated in secret, may lead to poor consequences for consumers, and “appears to be an unconstitutional power grab begun by…
Last week, PIJIP staff submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request to the State Department. The request was for the Circular 175 memo, the accompanying Memorandum of Law, and subsequently related documents in connection to the negotiation and conclusion of…
On Sunday 4 March, I attended the stakeholders’ forum at the 11th round of the Trans-Pacific Negotiations in Melbourne. I am particularly interested in the intellectual property chapter given my involvement in landmark copyright litigation in Australia. The leaked US…
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. Negotiations of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) have turned to discussions of the pharmaceutical reimbursement chapter today. This issue is highly controversial and represents a very recent shift in trade policy. There are only two previous free trade…
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. At this week’s Melbourne round of TPP negotiations, the Computers and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) — representing tech companies like Google, Facebook, E-Bay and Yahoo — has been circulating a new proposal for adding copyright limitations and exceptions…
[Enclosed are my comments at the TPP stakeholder forum in Melbourne, Australia, March 4, 2012. You may also see my Presentation Slides: What ACTA should learn from TPP and listen via Audio File TPP Presentation March 4 2012] I want…
On Friday March 2 (Australian time), the Australian Digital Alliance, NZRise, Knowledge Ecology International, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Internet NZ and New Zealand Computer Society hosted a briefing for negotiators on the TPP IP chapter and internet policy. These…
February 28: MEP and ACTA Rapporteur David Martin indicated he wants the European Parliament to refer ACTA to the European Court of Justice to ensure that the agreement does not conflict with other treaty obligations and EU Common Law. [see…
[Originally posted on publicknowledge.org] In my previous post on the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), I explained how provisions of TPP might harm you. Of course, it’s hard to know exactly what might be bad within secret agreements like the TPP–all…
PIJIP Research Paper no. 2012-06 Author: Jonathan Band Abstract: The controversy in the United States over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has profound implications for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. The SOPA debate underscores the importance of striking the…
As the U.S. enters a new round of TPP negotiations this week, it is being asked to initiate a formal trade dispute with one of the other countries at the negotiating table. Inside U.S. Trade reports that Senator Hatch has…
PIJIP Research Paper no. 2012-05 Author: Margot Kaminski Abstract: In the past several years of free trade agreement negotiations, a number of proposals for establishing an international standard of liability for copyright infringement by online intermediaries have emerged. These proposals…