[Ip-health] European Parliament briefing paper on the fight against counterfeiting and piracy in the bilateral trade agreements of the EU

[Duncan Matthews]

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The European Parliament has released a briefing paper on "The Fight against
Counterfeiting and Piracy in the Bilateral Trade Agreements of the EU". The
briefing paper was prepared by Dr. Duncan Matthews, Reader in Intellectual
Property Law at Queen Mary, University of London.



http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies/download.do?file
=21459



The European Parliament will have greater powers, including the right of
veto, over bilateral trade agreements if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force
and the briefing paper recommends that the Parliament use this enhanced role
to influence the content of IP enforcement provisions. In particular, the
briefing paper advises the European Parliament that decisions on the IP
enforcement provisions in bilateral agreements must be made on the basis of
adequate evidence on the level of counterfeiting and piracy and its effects.
The paper also points out that IP rights are private rights and the main
responsibility for taking measures to protect and enforce IP rights should
lie with individual right holders. The briefing paper recommends to the
European Parliament that it should consider carefully the need to balance
flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement with the need for additional provisions
in bilateral agreements to fight counterfeiting and piracy and points out
that provisions on bilateral dispute settlement mechanisms risk weakening
the multilateral dispute settlement system. The paper proposes that
bilateral agreements which expand the scope of border measures to cover
exports as well as goods in transit or transhipment should not be
unnecessarily burdensome and should be subject to the availability of
judicial review. It suggests that the European Parliament should encourage
the EU to undertake needs assessments in third countries to ensure that
adequate and appropriate technical and financial cooperation is made
available on mutually agreed terms and conditions in order to assist with
the training of police, customs officers, judiciary and other government
officials. In order to monitor and assess the impact of bilateral agreements
in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy, the briefing paper concludes
that setting up a parliamentary forum or an inter-parliamentary observatory
would be advantageous in the future.





Dr. Duncan Matthews

Reader in Intellectual Property Law

School of Law

Queen Mary, University of London

67-69 Lincoln's Inn Fields

London WC2A 3JB

United Kingdom

www.ipngos.org

www.eiptn.org

http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/people/academic/matthews.html

Tel. +44 (0)20 7882 8074



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