[Ecommerce] RE: Question on US-Chile Agreement IP Provisions ... Watch CAFTA!

[Manon Anne Ress]

John,

Thank you for the information on US/Chile "mystery 800 pages text."

I was attending a WITA event this morning (with a witty title like: "So 
many FTAs...so little time" I could not resist) where Regina Vargo (USTR 
Western hemisphere), Ambassador Leon (El Salvador), Mario Arana Sevilla 
(Nicaragua Minister of Development, Industry, and Commerce; Cal Cohen 
(Business Coalition) and Sandra Polaski (CEIP) talked about the 
launching of the Central America FTA (CAFTA).

To give you an idea of how fast this will go:  USTR said CAFTA 
negotiations started January 8, 2003.  They already had one round in San 
Jose, will have one in Cincinnati in February, then El Salvador....total 
9 rounds and it will be done by end of 2003.  At the first round, we 
were told delegates focused on Chile and to some extent Singapore (I 
hope they had the text!)

The Business Coalition advocating that the process be faster to "avoid 
the presidential year" brought up how "standards for IPR must be high" 
and how the CAFTA countries Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala 
and Costa Rica "have to commit to reforms."

Manon




John T. Mitchell wrote:
> Manon, it's my understanding that the text is not yet finalized, so all
> we have is what people are saying about it.  The Chilean Trade
> Commission site has a placeholder for posting it:
> http://www.chileinfo.com/fta/mi_agreement.html.  The Chilean legislature
> started getting briefings on it late last month, and I understand there
> have been public complaints in Chile about the secrecy surrounding it.
> 
> I noted with some amusement that even Jack Valenti spoke as though the
> MPAA hadn't seen it yet in his press statement of December 11, 2002 ("we
> look forward to examining the details of these complex, technical
> provisions").  
> 
>>From a few summaries I've seen, I can't see whether there is a devil is
> in the details.  The Chilean "official" summary seems to be about the
> same as that of the USTR you posted.
> 
> John
> ______________________________
> John T. Mitchell
> John@InteractionLaw.com
> http://interactionlaw.com
> 202-415-9213
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manon Anne Ress [mailto:manon.ress@cptech.org] 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 12:17 PM
> To: John@InteractionLaw.com; Lawfuluse List; ecommerce
> Subject: Question on US-Chile Agreement IP Provisions
> 
> 
> Dear John and Colleagues,
> Sorry for crossposting this.
> Last week at a meeting at Public Knowledge we talked about the FTAA IP 
> articles and their implications. I think John Mitchell mentioned that he
> 
> had work on Chile, and maybe he could help me with this.
> 1)I'm trying to find the 800 pages US-Chile Agreement but with no 
> success.
> 2)The question is: are there substantial differences between the FTAA 
> draft and the US Chile agreement?  Maybe one of you know if the 
> copyrights related provisions were consistent with the FTAA provisions 
> (no exceptions etc..) or was the text more "balanced" reflecting the 
> DMCA as is mentioned in the USTR summary below?
> Thanks
> Manon
> 
> http://www.ustr.gov/
> Summary of the U.S.- Chile Free Trade Agreement
> Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
> . High Level of IPR Protection
> - Protection of copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets is 
> state-of-the-art, going farther than previous free-trade agreements. 
> Enforcement of intellectual property rights is also enhanced under this 
> Agreement.
> - Non-discriminatory treatment for U.S. intellectual property 
> transmitted over the Internet.
> . Trademarks: State-of-the-Art Protection in the Digital Age
> - Ensures government involvement in resolving disputes between 
> trademarks and Internet domain names, which is important to prevent 
> "cyber-squatting" of trademarked domain names.
> - Applies principle of "first-in-time, first-in-right" to trademarks and
> 
> geographical indicators (place-names) applied to products. This means 
> that the first to file for a trademark is granted the first right to use
> 
> that name, phrase or geographical place-name.
> . Copyrights: Protection for Copyrighted Works in A Digital Economy
> - Ensures that only authors, composers and other copyright owners have 
> the right the make their works available online. Copyright owners 
> maintain all rights to even temporary copies of their works on 
> computers, which is important in protecting music, videos, software and 
> text from widespread unauthorized sharing via the Internet.
> - Copyrighted works and phonograms are protected for extended terms, 
> consistent with U.S. standards and international trends.
> - Strong anti-circumvention provisions to prohibit tampering with 
> technologies (like embedded codes on discs) that are designed to prevent
> 
> piracy and unauthorized distribution over the Internet.
> - Ensures that governments only use legitimate computer software, thus 
> setting a positive example for private users.
> - Limited liability for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), reflecting 
> the balance struck in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act between 
> legitimate ISP activity and the infringement of copyrights.


-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176