Civil society wants no intellectual property provisions in TAFTA
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Deutsch: [Zivilgesellschaft gegen Urheberrechtsbestimmungen in TAFTA | /EDRigram_11.6_Zivilgesellschaft_gegen_Urheberrechtsbestimmungen_in_TAFTA?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130327]
More than 45 civil society organisations from US and Europe, including
EDRi, ask that the proposed EU-US trade agreement called
Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) should exclude any provisions
related to patents, copyright, trademarks, or other forms of so-called
“intellectual property”.
US President Barack Obama, the European Council President Herman Van
Rompuy and the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso
announced on 13 February 2013 the official launch of negotiations of the
Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), known also as as the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The civil society organisations issued a declaration (IP OUT OF TAFTA)
in which they insist that TAFTA should have no intellectual property
provisions and that the EU and US should release the negotiating texts
of the trade agreement. They fear that TAFTA might include the
intellectual property provisions that were covered by the rejected ACTA
and they believe that such provisions could affect citizens’ rights to
health, culture, and free expression.
“Trade agreements are not the right forum to discuss intellectual
property rights,” says FFII analyst Ante Wessels who notes that “the
industry already dreams of setting a gold standard in areas such as
intellectual property rights protection. Does that sound familiar? Yes,
it does. It sounds like ACTA, the agreement overwhelmingly voted down
last July in the European Parliament. ACTA was, in almost all aspects, a
drama, out of touch with our societies.”
The Civil Society Declaration concludes that TAFTA negotiations “must
not lead to a rewriting of patent and copyright rules in a way that
tilts the balance even further away from the interests of citizens.”
Civil society organisations say no to intellectual property in EU – US
trade agreement (18.03.2013)
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/Civil%20society%20organisations%20say%20no%20to%20intellectual%20property%20in%20EU%20-%20US%20trade%20agreement
IP out of TAFTA – Civil Society Declaration
http://www.citizen.org/IP-out-of-TAFTA
EDRi-gram: Total transparency on ACTA and TAFTA documents (13.03.2013)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number11.5/total-transparency-acta-tafta