The enforcement of intellectual property rights is often presented as a neutral legal phenomenon aimed at ensuring compliance, or giving effect or force to a law. ...this neutrality recedes when it becomes apparent that some of the enforcement provisions contained in treaties, in fact, constitute a substantive expansion of rights instead of merely adding secondary norms of adjudication.

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The new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been seen as a potentially existential threat to the existing World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – as a new plurilateral institution that could replace the older multilateral organization. The ACTA threat to WIPO has a number of predecessors.

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This paper uses an anthropological definition of culture to examine the intensification of intellectual property policing, coupled with an expansion of its definition. These are ACTA’s aims. I argue that acts of sharing lie at the root of communication; humans must share in order to learn. Furthermore, symbols change their meaning as they circulate in different cultural contexts....

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Currently, there is insufficient text in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to ensure that it will not be used to alter the flexibility in TRIPS to establish and enforce an intellectual property exhaustion regime of choice. The first sale doctrine is alluded to in Article. 2.6, application by right holder, Option 1...

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Amendment: In Ch.1 - Sec. B: General Definitions, at the end of the definition of "Pirated copyright good" INSERT "This definition does not extend to copies that are lawfully made, without the permission of the right owners." | Justification: The text should make explicit that the definition of piracy does not extend to copies that are lawfully made, without the permission of the right owners.

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This paper considers the draft Internet provisions of ACTA in the context of concerns that the treaty will require signatories to mandate graduated response regimes for online copyright enforcement. Although the Consolidated Text of ACTA confirms that mandatory graduated response is off the table, it still accommodates and promotes the adoption of graduated response.

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The United States, the EU and Japan do not support the first paragraph in the preamble, which includes the text of Article 7 of the TRIPS, on objectives. Some also oppose restatement of the balancing principles from TRIPS article 7 and 8 in Chapter one. The weaker proposal to express that parties are "determined" to respect TRIPS should be rejected.

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This amendment is necessary to avoid facial conflict with the WTO TRIPS agreement. This is also a key issue for access to medicines advocates concerned about the use of ACTA to globalize EU legal standards that have been used to seize legitimate generic medicines in transit between countries where introduction of the good would have otherwise been lawful.

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PIJIP is pleased to announce the launch of our working paper series on IP-Enforcement. We will now be rolling out articles at the pace of several a week with the goal of releasing edited and formatted versions of the 17 submissions received thus far by September 17.

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A forthcoming article in the Journal of the Copyright Society of U.S.A by Niva Elkin-Koren and others examines experiences with the creation of codes of best practices for fair use in Israel. The abstract notes the influences of PIJIP and CSM's work on fair use, explaining: "The initiative was inspired by the visionary initiatives of Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, who worked with various communities in the U.S. to devise particular codes of Fair Use Best Practices..."

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