Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement overview

For the effects on software patents, see: ACTA and software patents.

This needs to be reviewed in light of the October 2010 publication of the near-final text. HELP SOUGHT!

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed international trade agreement. It is primarily being advanced by the USA, EU, Japan, and Switzerland but other countries are also involved such as Canada, Australia, South Korea, Mexico and New Zealand.

(ESP Wiki hosted two big leaks in early 2010, but the official text has now been published.)

Despite the name, this agreement covers much more than counterfeiting.

What's in it?

(see ACTA and software patents)

• Intermediaries, such as ISPs, can be required to remove or block files at the request of the holder of any copyright, patent, trademark, or any other form of "intellectual property", without a court case
• ISPs can be forced to hand over identifying information about Internet users to right holders, without a court case
• Circumventing or removing a "technical protection mechanism" becomes illegal

Participating countries

Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States (US).

Government bodies supporting, criticising

Expressing full support:

• Barack Obama
• European Commission

Expressing criticism:

• European Parliament
• European Data Protection Supervisor

Timeline

• 2010-03-22: bigger leak: 201001 acta.pdf as text
• 2010-03-01: big leak: ACTA-6437-10.pdf as text (this includes comments from the EU)
• 2010-02-25: leak of 2-page document[1]
• 2008-07-29: Second ACTA negotiating round, 29‑31 July 2008, in Washington
• 2008-06-23: European Commission holds "stakeholder consultation", Brussels
• 2008-06-03: First ACTA negotiating round, 3‑4 June 2008, in Geneva
• 2008-05-22: leaked ACTA proposal published by WikiLeaks from 2007[2]
• 2008-04-14: EU: negotiating guidelines for ACTA formally adopted by the Council

New or old

A lot of requirements of ACTA already exist in the US and the European Union. The important change (for the worse) would be that these requirements will change from being under the control of Congress/Parliament to being an international treaty almost impossible to change. ACTA thus chains our laws to the 20^th century.

(Terminology: in the EU, the set of domains that are currently under the control of the EU institutions is the acquis communautaire.)

Does not require software patents

ACTA makes all patents more dangerous, but it contains nothing requiring signatories to allow software to be patented. From the text of the leaked 25-August-2010 draft, we can see that this is explicitly stated:

ARTICLE 1.3: RELATION TO STANDARDS CONCERNING THE AVAILABILITY AND SCOPE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

1. This Agreement shall be without prejudice to provisions governing the availability, acquisition, scope, and maintenance of intellectual property rights contained in a Party's law.

2. This Agreement does not create any obligation on a Party to apply measures where a right in intellectual property is not protected under the laws and regulations of that Party.

Related pages on ESP Wiki

• ACTA and software patents
• ACTA-6437-10.pdf as text (plain text transcription of the leaked files)
• TRIPS
• Criminalising patent infringement is draconian

External links

Information from Civil Society

• FFII's analysis, FFII
• DigitalMajority.org commentary
• Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, Wikipedia
• The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), IP Justice
• November 2009 status - focus is "internet enforcement", by Michael Geist
• A leaked report from the January 2010 ACTA meeting, from the European Union delegation
• Help the European Parliament Oppose ACTA, La Quadrature
• Broken links: 2009 leaked draft, [3], from wikileaks (Since late 2009, and as of Feb 2010, this site is offline)
• ACTA (ever) more questions, 23 Feb 2010, Erik Josefsson

European Union

• European Commission's April 2009 summary (tradoc_142745.pdf)
• Resolution collecting signatures of members of the European Parliament, 9 Mar 2010

Questions officially submitted to the European Commission

The European Commission is obliged to respond to questions officially submitted by members of the European Parliament. They have to do so in a certain time limit (six weeks?).

• 25 February 2010 (Mr De Gucht)
• 20 February 2009 (Mr McCreevy)
• 8 February 2010 (Ms Ferrero-Waldner)
• 4 February 2010 (Mrs Ferrero-Waldner)
• 15 September 2008 (Mr Mandelson)
• 12 September 2008 (Mr Mandelson)
• Awaiting response: An MEP asks the European Commission about the timeline, content, and justifications of ACTA - 22 Jan 2010.
• Awaiting response: From Britta Thomsen, January 21st 2010
• 9 Mar 2010: Members of European Parliaments ask when they will receive the ACTA documents

USA

• Anti-counterfeiting agreement raises constitutional concerns, 25 Mar 2010