Two separate government officials from two different countries have stated that the next ACTA negotiation will be the week of June 28 to July 2. Previous releases have indicated that the meeting will be held in Geneva, Switzerland. Public interest advocates have also been informed off the record that the U.S. government is planning to conduct a notice and comment process on the recently released text. no date for the comment process was indicated.

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Today the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, a trade advisory board to the United States and the European Commission, hosted a series of roundtable discussions in regard to the recent release of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement draft text. It featured a diverse group of panelists, including representatives from universities, European and American public interest groups, and government agencies.

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Today the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) released its report “Fair Use in the U.S. Economy,” which measures the economic contributions of industries that rely on flexibilities in copyright law. These contributions are massive, including 16.2% of GDP in 2007, and 23% of real GDP growth over five years. The report was released at a panel on Capitol Hill which included comments by Rep. Zoe Lofgren and PIJIP professor Peter Jaszi.

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The Kenyan Supreme Court issued an order today temporarily preventing the enforcement of the Kenyan Anti-Counterfeit Law with respect to generic medicines. The order may be a good sign for opponents of the bill because the Court recognizes the potential harm anti-counterfeit enforcement could cause.

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The European Union released the first official consolidated draft of ACTA on Wednesday, April 21. This blog post contains a summary of the section on Civil Enforcement - including civil proceedings, injunctions, damages, other remedies, privacy issues related to the identification of alleged infringers, and provisional measures. It provides an analysis of how this latest text differs from previous leaked versions.

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The European Commission released on Wednesday the first public draft of a controversial intellectual property treaty that legal experts still fear could radically change the way content on the Internet is distributed. Known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the U.S. has been negotiating the proposed treaty with several other countries, including the E.C., Japan, and Canada, with unusual secrecy.

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At a recent meeting between trade officials and health activists, it was suggested that access to essential medicines is not threatened by patents in India, because there are no product patents on HIV drugs in there. As US trade officials are well aware, India has introduced the product patent regime with an amendment to its patent law and enacted the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005 to in order to implement its TRIPS obligations.

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Although there appear to have been some positive changes from New Zealand, many of the most controversial provisions remain in ACTA. The text merely allows instead of requires three strikes. But it appears on the road to require notice and take down. The provision creates a safe harbor from suit for ISPs if they have a policy for "disabling access" to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized "transmission of materials protected by copyright." If the ISPs choose not to do so, they could face legal liability.

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The EU has released the negotiating text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The text is available here: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/april/tradoc_146029.pdf As of yet, is not clear when the next negotiation meeting will be. Two separate country officials have stated off the record that it is likely to be after the week of June 7, one said "late June" and one indicated that the week of June 28th is possible.

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In a report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council over the weekend, PIJIP joined with HIV treatment advocacy organizations Health Global Access Project (HealthGAP) and the European Community Advisory Board to call for a human rights review of U.S. trade policy on access to medicines. The submission explains that the United States has been using trade agreements, foreign aid, technical assistance and diplomatic pressure to promote intellectual property rights at the expense of human rights.

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