ABSTRACT: Australia and South Korea have signed a new free trade agreement – the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement (KAFTA). Is it a fair trade fairytale? Or is it a dirty deal done dirt cheap? Or somewhere in between? It is hard to tell, given the initial secrecy of the negotiations, and the complexity of the texts of the agreement …
Recommendation 4: The intellectual property chapter of the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement 2014 is controversial. The proposed regime is one-sided and unbalanced. The intellectual property chapter is focused upon providing longer and stronger intellectual property rights for intellectual property owners. There is a failure to properly consider other public interest objectives – such as access to knowledge, the progress of science and the useful arts, and the promotion of innovation and competition.
