EU Leak On ACTA Shows Path To Completion

Negotiators of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will meet again after all to “finalise the legal scrub of the ACTA text” and to solve issues “of a technical nature,” according to recently leaked documents from the European Commission. They also show a document agreed by the US and the EU “for a package solution to the outstanding reservations” from the latest text, released after a meeting in Tokyo, Japan, and a document analysing the value-added of ACTA in relation to other international IP agreements.

This meeting, from 23 September to 1 October in Tokyo, was meant to be the final negotiating round of parties to the agreement (IPW, Enforcement, 4 October 2010). The text released then was near completion, but a few outstanding areas remained, on border issues and the digital environment.

The leaked texts are available here:

• a cover letter to the Committee on International Trade (INTA) at the European Parliament is available here [doc].
• a note to the Trade Policy Committee is available here [doc].
• a note on the “innovative elements of ACTA” especially as related to the World Trade Organization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement is available here [doc].
• a document responding to comments from several European member states is available here [doc].
• the US/EU proposed package solution is available here [pdf].

The next meeting is scheduled for 30 November to 3 (or “if necessary 4”) December at the Observatory Hotel on Kent St in Sydney, Australia.