International trade agreements and intellectual property

ACTA showed us how intellectual property and copyright policy may become embroiled in trade policy. Since the demise of ACTA in the European Union, following the European Parliament's rejection of it, there have been attempts to slide it in to other trade agreements. Notably, the US in its update of the NAFTA agreement known as USMCA, has an updated chapter on IPR enforcement. It was under discussion for the proposed US-UK agreement, but this has been put on hold under the Biden Administration. I have likewise put any posts on this deal on hold.

If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in ACTA and copyright enforcement policy, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’

IP Brexit: Will Liam Fox protect the Cornish pasty?

Monica Horten

Published on 03 August 2017

An esoteric intellectual property right granted to a small pastry product leads us to the epicentre of the geopolitics of Brexit.

Britain’s international trade Minister Liam Fox let slip last week in a BBC Radio interview that his US trade talks will include intellectual property rights (IPR). The inclusion of IPR is not a surprise to seasoned watchers of the international trade agenda, but the implications for British businesses might be. Brexit means that some IP rights will fall away, such as geographical indicators which protect local British products like the Cornish pasty. There will be political choices for the British government. Those choices will be shaped by the wider geo-political forces between the EU and the US.

TTIP leaks: US warned on sensitive IPR issues

Monica Horten

Published on 04 May 2016

The European Union has warned the United States not to make last-minute demands for measures on intellectual property rights, as the two attempt to conclude the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Parnership (TTIP ). In particular, the EU has stressed that some US demands would 'have a limited chance of being accepted'.

The position on IPR in TTIP has come to light in the documents leaked to Greenpeace, and revealed to the German media on Tuesday this week.

Within the documents made public by Greenpeace was

TTIP EU-US trade ‘dialogue’ on ISP / web hosting liability

Monica Horten

Published on 10 March 2014

Part 3 of a series of 3 postings on the leaked EU TTIP discussion document

It has emerged that the rules that protect Internet service providers and hosting companies from content liability are being tabled for discussion in talks about the proposed EU –EU trade deal (TTIP) . The proposal was revealed in a leaked European Commission document published recently by the German newspaper Die Zeit. Since any move by the EU to on intermediary liability legislation will be highly constroversial, it is interesting that the Commission is putting it forward for TTIP talks.

Iptegrity in brief

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing. I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022) Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity