The New Zealand Ministry of Trade and Export Growth has formally announced that the CPTPP has been ratified by six countries – Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Japan and Mexico – and will take affect on December 30. The sixth country (Australia) gave formal notification today, so the agreement will be in force among these six countries after the required 60 day period. Trade Minister David Parker told reporters “The signal that it sends to the rest of the world that there’s a new rules-based order out there in the world that people can buy into if they want as an incredibly powerful signal at this particular time.”

Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam have yet to ratify the agreement. The United States pulled out of the Agreement on President Trump’s first day in office (leading to the name change from Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) to Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Since then, Trump has suggested he might want to re-enter it if all the countries would renegotiate it, but the response has been unenthusiastic (see more about this on Inside U.S. Trade).

After the United States left the agreements, the remaining countries removed some, but not all of the intellectual property provisions it had sought.  Here is how the government of Canada describes the changes:

The CPTPP contains a comprehensive chapter on IP, which sets a regional standard for the protection and enforcement of IP rights across the Asia-Pacific region. The chapter includes provisions in almost all categories of IP rights, and builds on the framework established under existing international IP treaties.

As part of the conclusion of the CPTPP, the 11 remaining TPP parties agreed to suspend a number of provisions in the original TPP IP chapter. These suspensions serve to rebalance the IP chapter to reflect the remaining parties’ interests and priorities, and suspend the original TPP obligations in the following areas:

  • On patents and pharmaceuticals, the parties agreed to suspend the TPP obligations on patent-term adjustment and patent-term restoration, which required parties to adjust the patent term in respect of patent office and marketing approval delays. The parties also agreed to suspend all provisions dealing with data protection for small-molecule drugs and biologics, as well as certain provisions on patentable subject matter to more closely align with international standards under the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS).
  • On copyright, the CPTPP suspends the original TPP obligation on the term of protection for copyright and related rights and a provision on national treatment dealing with payment on copyright and related rights, as well as provisions on technological protection measures (TPMs, or “digital locks”) and rights management information (RMI, or “digital watermarks” on copyrighted works).
  • On ISP liability, the CPTPP suspends obligations on legal remedies and safe harbours for ISPs. As well, on IP rights enforcement, parties have agreed to suspend provisions in respect of encrypted program-carrying satellite and cable signals.