By Nathaniel DeLucia
Negotiations are currently underway between the United
States and eleven other Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam,
Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and
Vietnam) to secure the U.S.’s latest free
trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”). The TPP will affect almost all areas of
international trade, from Even dispute settlement and
environmental regulations are covered. Despite the TPP’s broad coverage, its
provisions (or proposed provisions) on intellectual property laws stand out, as
they further the important goal of harmonizing the world’s intellectual
property laws.
textiles and E-commerce, to intellectual property and
labor laws.
World harmonization of intellectual property laws has been a
major goal of international law since the creation of the original Paris
Convention in 1883
and the Berne Convention in 1886. These two treaties attempted to harmonize the
signatories’ (predominately western Europe) patent, trademark, and copyright
laws by creating certain minimum standards.
Since the creation of the Paris and Berne Conventions, many treaties
have been signed which have sought to make the world’s intellectual property
laws more uniform. The U.S. has signed the
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (“TRIPS”)
Agreement in 1994(which incorporated and greatly expanded the scope of the
Paris and Berne Conventions) and passed America Invents Act (“AIA”)
in 2011 (which brought the U.S.’s patent laws more in line with the rest of the
world). The TPP is therefore simply
continuing this trend of intellectual property harmonization.
The TPP attempts to harmonize all of the major areas of
intellectual property law,
including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets by requiring signatories to bring their
domestic laws more in line with United States law. For example, the proposed patent agreement
would include provisions similar to those found in the United States Hatch-Waxman
Act for patents. The Hatch-Waxman Act
attempts to strike a balance between the interests of patent owners and their
generic competitors in the pharmaceuticals industry by granting longer patent
protection for pharmaceutical patents, but easier FDA approval for generics
upon expiration of the patent.
One of the major copyright provisions requires signatories
to grant protection to copyrighted works for the life of the author plus
seventy years. Additionally, the proposed agreement also
will have carve-outs,
allowing use of copyrighted material by third parties, based on U.S. fair use
and first amendment principles. The term of protection for copyrighted works
has, and remains, an area where many countries domestic laws differ. For example, the United States has a term of
life of the author plus seventy years, while Mexico grants protection for life
of the author plus 100 years, but Japan currently only grants protection for
life of the author plus fifty years.
Harmonizing the term of protection for copyrights will make
administrating copyright protection easier, both for the courts and for
copyright owners, and eliminate the troubling situation where a work is
protected by copyright in one country, but not in another.
As one of the United States’ largest
free trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will no doubt
have a tremendous impact on both international trade generally, and
intellectual property specifically.
Photo of TPP Member
State Leaders ourtesy of Wiki
Commons
0 comments:
Post a Comment