Friday 17 October 2014

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: a Halloween horror-show –

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: a Halloween horror-show –

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: a Halloween horror-show








Halloween has come early this year, with WikiLeaks’ release of the latest version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.


With a customary flourish, Julian Assange released the text, commenting:



The selective secrecy
surrounding the TPP negotiations, which has let in a few cashed-up
megacorps but excluded everyone else, reveals a telling fear of public
scrutiny. By publishing this text we allow the public to engage in
issues that will have such a fundamental impact on their lives.”

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was
considered dead and buried. The deal contained intellectual property
enforcement measures to address copyright piracy, trademark
counterfeiting and border measures. After civil and political protests
in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia, ACTA collapsed,
under the weight of criticism.



But like an undead zombie, much of ACTA has been revived in
the intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP). The United States Trade Representative has been engaged in policy
laundering — transposing policy proposals and ideas from ACTA to the
TPP.



The Intellectual Property Chapter of the TPP is much more
extensive than the TRIPS Agreement in the World Trade Organization, or
the intellectual property chapters in TRIPS+ agreements like the
Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.



Summarising the chapter, James Love from Knowledge Ecology International has commented:



The May 16, 2014 version of
the consolidated negotiating text for the Intellectual Property Chapter
for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is a long, complex
document that taken as a whole is designed to expand and extend
monopolies on knowledge goods, including in particular publisher-owned
copyrights, patents on inventions, and monopoly rights in data used to
register new drugs, vaccines and agricultural chemical products.”

The leaked text reveals a battle for the heart and soul of
intellectual property. The United States and Japan have been pushing for
longer and stronger intellectual property rights. Canada, New Zealand,
Singapore, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brunei, Vietnam, and Malaysia have
pushed back, arguing for a recognition of intellectual property serving
public policy objectives, such as the promotion of public health, access
to knowledge, and competition.



Australia has finally shown its hand in the negotiations.
The Abbott government has been pushing for text, promoting intellectual
property enforcement:




Each Party confirms its
commitment to reducing impediments to trade and investment by promoting
deeper economic integration through effective and adequate creation,
utilization, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights,
and through greater quality, efficiency and transparency in its
intellectual property administration and registration systems.”

Sadly, the Abbott government seems to have often aligned itself with the United States and Japan in the IP chapter of the TPP.


The TPP is literally a Mickey Mouse agreement — with a
proposal for a copyright term extension throughout the Pacific Rim to
benefit Disney and other Hollywood film companies. The TPP also proposes
a raft of copyright maximalist proposals
 — including strong protection of technological protection measures and
rights management information, and an arsenal of enforcement measures. A
non-paper outlines a regime for safe harbours for internet service
providers. Rupert Murdoch would be happy with the promise of special
protection for satellite and cable signals. The TPP chimes with the
efforts of the Attorney-General George Brandis to have a domestic
copyright crackdown in Australia — with extended liability for copyright
intermediaries, like internet service providers, and wider enforcement
measures.



In her classic book No Logo, Naomi Klein warned of
the rise of brand bullies, with the expansion of protection for
well-known trademarks, and the globalisation of markets. The International Trademark Association
(INTA) has been lobbying hard for stronger protection of trademarks and
related rights. The TPP seeks to provide broad protection for
well-known and famous trademarks, and remedies for counterfeiting. The
TPP offers additional remedies for “cybersquatting
on internet domain names. A number of countries have pushed for
stronger protection of geographical indications for wine regions — the
US, though, has sought to nobble these proposals.



It is disturbing that the Australian government has failed
to protect tobacco control measures like graphic health warnings and the
plain packaging of tobacco products in the IP chapter of the TPP.



The pharmaceutical drug industry has lobbied heavily upon patent law and data protection in the TPP. Burcu Kilic from Public Citizen has analysed
the leaked TPP text on public health.The United States has been pushing
for an expansive definition of inventions, patent term extensions and
evergreening, marketing linkage and data exclusivity. MSF has been
concerned about Australia’s role in the debate:




While the Australian
government continues to oppose many of the most problematic provisions,
we are concerned about Australian support for the U.S. government’s push
to mandate rules that facilitate secondary and abusive patenting by
pharmaceutical companies, which blocks more affordable generic
competition.There has been concern about the regime for access to
essential medicines — a topic of great significance given the current
public health crisis in respect of Ebola.”

In addition, the United States Trade Representative has been
pushing for criminal penalties and procedures in respect of trade
secrets to protect its flagship technology companies,
as well as government concerns. There has been a great deal of concern
that such measures could be deployed against information technology
activists (in the manner of the late Aaron Swartz).



Journalists — particularly investigative journalists — and
media companies could be targeted by corporations and governments for
revealing trade secrets. WikiLeaks and whistleblowers, such as Assange,
Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden could also be targeted for revealing
government secrets.



In total, the TPP is a Halloween horror-show, full of
frightening and terrifying measures designed to boost the intellectual
property rights of large transnational companies.



*Dr Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on intellectual property and climate change.

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