GSK Critiques Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has taken a stance on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), welcoming most of its provisions, but requesting a harmonised approach for implementation, because the much-debated agreement would leave a lot of space for differing national implementations. GSK warns in its paper against individual EU countries adopting ACTA into national law, something which some EU governments have announced they would do.

Also, GSK, while being satisfied with most of the ACTA provisions, would have preferred to have patent infringements formally mentioned in the civil law section. Moreover, it did not like the de minimis provision that allows countries to exclude counterfeits in non-commercial quantities, for example, counterfeits found in travellers’ luggage, GSK wrote.

“GSK believes that this de minimis provision in the final Agreement sends out the entirely inappropriate message that ‘a little bit of crime is acceptable’,” the statement reads.

The full statement can be found here [pdf].