IP ENFORCEMENT ROUNDUP

India and EU Announce Agreement on Dispute Over Seizures of Drugs in Transit

India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has announced an agreement with the EU to settle their dispute over the seizure of Indian generic drugs in transit.  The EU has agreed to adopt guidelines for its customs officials preventing them from seizing medicines in transit unless they have evidence that the goods will enter the European market, and would therefore infringe patent rights in the EU.  In return, “India will not request the establishment of a dispute settlement panel at the WTO” as long as the understanding is upheld. Click here for more.

Three Governors, Three Trade Associations, and Five Theater Chains Urge Senators to Support the PROTECT-IP Act

The Motion Picture Association of America has announced eleven different letters in support of the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (S.968 – the ‘PROTECT-IP Act).  Gov. Dannel Malloy wrote that “15,000 people living in Connecticut are either directly or indirectly employed by the film industry.”  Gov. Beverly Perdue wrote that “piracy represents a direct attack on over 3,000 crafts people” employed by the film industry in North Carolina.  Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah did not give jobs figures from his state, but said that piracy cost a total of 2.5 million jobs in the G20 economies (a figure contained in a recent BASCAP report). Click here for more.

Two Letters from Congress to Obama on IP in the TPP

Forty members of the House of Representatives have written President Obama urging that the intellectual property chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) include a requirement that countries offer 12 years of data exclusivity for new biologic drugs: “…we urge you to support current U.S. law on biologics, which provides for 12 years of protection. The U.S.-led biopharmaceutical industry would be disadvantaged if the U.S. does not ensure consistency with U.S. law as part of the TPP, because foreign countries do not provide the same type of protection rules.”  Another letter from fourteen House Democrats urged Obama to uphold a 2007 trade policy that grants greater flexibility in intellectual property rules – including data exclusivity – that influence access to medicines.  Click here for more.

Mexican Senate Urges President to Reject ACTA

The Mexican Senate has released a statement urging President Calderon to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.  A statement by a group of Senators led by Eloy Cantu Segovia (translated by Geraldine Juarez, and printed in English on Techdirt) argues that ACTA “would violate the principle of the presumption of innocence… would be a limitation to the ‘universlaization of internet access desirable in Mexican society’… and that it could lead to a censorship of internet content and therefore a restriction of freedom in its operation and neutrality.”  The statement also said that the “process of negotiating this agreement violated the Law on Approval of Treaties on Economic Matters.” Click here for more.

Events and Deadlines