Source: AU Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade
On Sunday, TPP negotiators concluded their 14th round of negotiations. The IPR talks revolved around cooperation on IPRs, trademarks, and geographical indications. Progress in the IPR negotiations were said to be progressing very slowly, and negotiators were scheduled to address copyright provisions on the last day. USTR announced that the next round of negotiations will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, on December 3-12, and that “Mexico and Canada will join the TPP negotiations once current TPP members successfully conclude their domestic procedures, which is expected to occur in early October.”
An Avaaz.org petition asking governments “to make the TPP process transparent and accountable to all, and to reject any plans that limit our governments’ power to regulate in the public interest” has received over 670,000 signatures as of Monday evening.
Inside U.S. trade reports that negotiators are “discussing a provision tabled by the U.S. on the retransmission of television signals over the Internet, which was missing from the overall U.S. intellectual property rights (IPR) proposal tabled in February 2011 … [that] reflects the standard found in past U.S. free trade agreements, including those with South Korea and Colombia.” It further reportsthat this week the U.S. tabled additional text on pharmaceutical pricing that is “expected to ease up in its general demands for rules governing how countries implement their reimbursement programs, even as the U.S continues to press hard for specific commitments from individual TPP members, including New Zealand;” and that the U.S. will seek additional consultations with stakeholders over IPR and access to medicines.
