Countries to sign Trans-Pacific trade deal minus IP provisions
A group of 11 countries is expected to sign a Trans-Pacific trade deal today, just over a year after US President Donald Trump abandoned his country’s involvement.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), now covers Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
A number of provisions have been suspended from the deal, with the chapter on IP seeing the most suspensions.
Suspensions in the IP chapter concerned safe harbour provisions for internet service providers, technological protection measures and rights management information.
The copyright extension to 70 years after an author or artist’s death and rules on the length of protection afforded to data exclusivity rights for biological drugs have also been suspended.
According to the Asian Trade Centre, self-described as the “thought leader” for trade in Asia, there were two main reasons for the IP section having the most extensive changes.
First, that many of the more advanced IP provisions were “included at the insistence of US negotiators and were quite unpopular in the original agreement”.
Second was that while Japan fought hard to keep the TPP members from making overall changes, it managed to confine the bulk of the suspensions to the IP chapter.
While the original IP chapter was the most substantial portion of the agreement (running to 75 pages), even with approximately 18 pages now cut, the IP commitments in the TPP11 remain extensive, explained the centre.
Joshua Rich, partner at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, said: “In the end, by withdrawing from the TPP, the US has lost much of the leverage it could have used to bring the other countries’ IP protections up to the level of the US.”
According to Reuters, the CPTPP will reduce tariffs in the 11 countries that together amount to more than 13% of the global economy, a total of $10 trillion. With the US, the countries in the deal would have represented 40% of the global economy.
It has also been reported that the UK is considering signing up to the trade deal after the country exits the EU.
The agreement is expected to be signed today in Chile.
The TPP deal is one of WIPR’s top ten big issues for 2018. To read about it and the other nine, click here.
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