Category RCEP

Defending Access to Medicines in Regional Trade Agreements: Lessons From the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – A Qualitative Study of Policy Actors’ Views

[Belinda Townsend] ...The RCEP negotiations were initially framed as focused on the needs of low income countries. Public health concerns emerged however when draft negotiating chapters were leaked online, revealing pressures on countries to agree to intellectual property and investment measures that could exacerbate issues of access to medicines and seeds, and protecting regulatory space for public health. A concerted Asia Pacific civil society campaign emerged in response to these concerns, and in 2019, media and government reporting suggested that several of these measures had been taken off the table, which was subsequently confirmed in the release of the signed text in November 2020.

Balanced Copyright in RCEP

The Regional Cooperation for Economic Partnership (RCEP), signed on November 15, 2020 by sixteen countries in the Asia Pacific region, includes language on copyright exceptions that builds on provisions that appeared in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) and the Korea US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS).

Civil Society Letter on Intellectual Property to RCEP Negotiators

We are concerned about TRIPS-plus proposals concerning intellectual property enforcement. Intellectual property are “private” rights, to be enforced by the IP holder. However, we note with concern that there are a number of proposals shifting the burden of enforcement onto the government and according greater enforcement rights in favour of the IP holder at the expense of equity, rights of third parties and public interests.

May 20: Webinar on the USMCA (NAFTA 2.0) and Access to Medicines

How will the recently-concluded United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) impact access to affordable medicines? The USMCA – the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (also commonly referred to as NAFTA 2.0) – incorporates many of the harmful provisions from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), including patent provisions that were suspended by the remaining Parties following the withdrawal of the US. It goes even further than the TPP in extending the exclusivities for biologics to ten years, an unprecedented TRIPS-plus measure. Beyond the intellectual property chapter, multiple other chapters and provisions of the USMCA also have implications for access to affordable, safe and effective medicines.

Secondary Liability and Safe Harbors for Internet Service Providers

This is the second in a series of blogs comparing copyright and technology provisions in eight trade agreements: TPP, CPTPP, USMCA, CETA, RCEP, EU-Mercosur FTA, EU-Japan FTA and the China-Korea FTA. The previous post discussed provisions calling for copyright ‘balance’ and addressing the circumvention of technological protection measures. This one looks at the provisions requiring secondary liability for internet service providers (ISPs) and allowing-or-requiring safe harbors from such liability.

Civil Society Letter to Indian Minister of Commerce & Industry Suresh Prabhu, re: RCEP and Access to Medicines

Dear Mr. Prabhu: We are writing to you as concerned people living with HIV and civil society organizations working on the issues of intellectual property (IP), trade, and access to medicines to express our serious discontent over the IP provisions in the ongoing negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). These provisions in RCEP are referred to as TRIPS-plus, and go way beyond India’s obligations under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). We call on the Government of India to protect the flexibilities available under TRIPS agreement in larger public interest.

Copyright Exceptions, Trade Agreements, and the Digital Economy

PIJIP has researched IP and trade for a while, but we’ve mostly focused on FTAs that included the US.  This year we’ve begun to broaden our view – to look more closely at agreements like RCEP and other Asia-Pacific agreements. This fall we began a detailed comparison of CPTPP, RCEP, CETA, RCEP, EU-Mercosur, EU-Japan, and the China-Korea FTA, with a focus on the copyright and enforcement provisions, and with an eye toward provisions that affect the digital economy. In the last few couple of weeks we’ve begun looking into the provisions in USMCA as well.  This post compares some of the existing text on two provisions: the ‘balance’ provision and protection of TPMs.

Japan’s Emerging Role in the Global Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Regime: A Tale of Two Trade Agreements

Authors: Belinda Townsend, Deborah Gleeson and Ruth Lopert. Abstract: This paper explores Japan’s role in reshaping the global pharmaceutical intellectual property regime by examining its position on the expansion of intellectual property rights (IPR) in negotiations for two regional trade agreements: the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Through systematic analysis of leaked negotiating texts documenting its positions on key issues, we demonstrate Japan is now playing a pivotal role in promoting the adoption of expanded IPRs.

Current Alliances in International Intellectual Property Lawmaking: The Emergence and Impact of Mega-Regionals

International Centre for Trade and Development, Link (CC-BY-NC) ICTSD is pleased to publish the fourth issue in the CEIPI-ICTSD series on Global Perspectives and Challenges for the Intellectual Property System produced jointly with the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI). The new…