ISDS Case Map
intellectual property
The Japanese government is increasingly using free trade agreements (FTAs) to tighten corporate control over seeds and other forms of biodiversity that are crucial to food, agriculture and medicine. Two such deals sealed this month with Chile and Indonesia put Japan in the big league of nations using bilateral deals to make seed-saving on the farm a thing of the past.
India is likely to sign an agreement with Switzerland on intellectual property rights (IPRs) to improve the bilateral economic cooperation with Switzerland.
The United States has begun incorporating a revised intellectual property and health policy into its bilateral trade deals. But although the overall softer approach towards its partners may improve access to medicines, the debate on the impact of the US free trade agreements on public health in developing countries is not over, according to close observers.
Swiss Economic Affairs Minister Doris Leuthard and Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai pledged in Beijing to study the feasibility of a free trade deal.
Dominican Republic was ratified as country president of the Intellectual Property Work Group for the American Hemisphere, in recognition of the Customs Agency's (DGA) work in copyrights, as the DR-CAFTA trade agreement and international treaties stipulate.
In its economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations with the ACP, the European Union seems to have forgotten the development dimension and pursues an agenda that reflects primarily the interest of the EU alone. This pattern is painfully evident in the EU's pursuit of new and higher standards for intellectual property and other trade-related areas.
Letter to the Editors, Financial Times, 25 May 2007, on the proposed intellectual property provisions of the EPAs.
There will be more criminal prosecutions for intellectual property violations as a result of Australia's Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, according to leading IP academics.
