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ACTA Talks Resume: Round Ten Opens Today in Washington

By Michael Geist

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks resume today as Round Ten opens in Washington, DC. The full agenda indicates that all the issues will be addressed along with discussions of many smaller matters that have been left until the end.  Following the last round in Lucerne, Switzerland (which only concluded 47 days ago), I had several posts on the leaked draft that tried to identify the primary areas of disagreement, the Canadian positions, the U.S. decision to cave on anti-circumvention, the importance of geographical indications in the talks, and speculation on the prospect of the EU walking away from ACTA.

The decision to move to a full round - rather than more informal (and less transparent) inter-round talks or a bi-lateral meeting between the U.S. and EU - seems to have come fairly late in the process.  With the U.S. on its home turf and having pushed for an accelerated schedule (there will be another round in Japan early in the fall), the next week could decide the fate of ACTA.  If neither side is willing to budge on the core disagreement over scope of the treaty, the prospect of a slimmed down group of countries as part of ACTA becomes greater.  If the move to a full round is a sign that movement is likely, there is every reason to believe that ACTA will be concluded this year.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on August 16, 2010 (boomark / email).