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Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between two or more countries is entered by countries to create a free-trade area is the region encompassing a trade bloc for the member countries. Such agreements involve cooperation between at least two countries to reduce trade barriers – import quotas and tariffs – and to increase trade of goods and services with each other..
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free-trade agreement signed in Auckland, New Zealand, on Feb. 4, 2016 between 12 countries of the Pacific rim including Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States of America, Vietnam and Japan.
The trade pact will enter into force after, it is ratified by at least six participating governments over the next two years.
The 12 member countries represent nearly 40% of the global GDP and about one-third of all world trade, nearly twice as much as the European Union (EU).
It has been signed amidst protests due to it’s controversial intellectual property provisions.3 Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty
TRADEMARKS UNDER TPPATrademark protection is extended for
sounds, scents and collective marks.A well known trademark, it neither
needs to be a registered trademark nor it has to be popular in the relevant sector of public, thus deviating from TRIPS which requires the trademark to be known in the relevant sector of the public for it to be considered a well-known trademark.
least eight years” of protection “from the date of first marketing approval of that product in that Party” or for a period of “at least five years from the date of first marketing approval of that product in that Party”,
TPP is also the first U.S. trade agreement to include an explicit reference to protection for biologics.
Patents shall be available “for any new forms, uses, or methods of using a known product... even if such invention does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that product.” This is the first time that ever-greening of patent has been given approval in a FTA.
COPYRIGHT the term of copyright protection extended to 70
years after the death of a natural person; and 95 years from the date of the first authorized publication of the work, performance of phonogram for a non-natural person. “Failing such authorized publication within 25 years from the creation of the work, performance, or phonogram, not less than 120 years from the end of the calendar year of creation.”
TPPA provides limitations on Internet Service Provider (ISP) liability and expressly provides that eligibility for these liability limitations “shall not be conditioned on the [ISP] monitoring its service or affirmatively seeking facts” of infringement
Civil and criminal liability against any person who “circumvents without authority any effective technological measure that controls access to a protected work,” or otherwise makes available devices that are intended to circumvent for commercial advantage or private financial gain. There is no knowledge requirement in order to be held civilly liable.
Rights holders may “authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works in any manner or form.” rights holders may authorize or prohibit parallel imports.
TPP provides the most robust trade secret protections to require criminal penalties for trade secret theft, including cyber-theft. However, the Agreement also allows Parties to impose limitations on the availability of such remedies. TPPA requires member countries to provide a range of IP enforcement mechanisms, including civil and administrative procedures and remedies, provisional measures, border measures, and criminal procedures and penalties. TPP permits seizure not only of infringing products but also of “assets derived from, or obtained through, the alleged infringing activity”.
Vietnam - whose low-wage economy relies on exports - is estimated to be the biggest winner of the deal that slashes an estimated 18,000 tariffs among the dozen participating countries.
Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, & U.S.A will have huge benefits from TPP
Malaysia, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, Canada & Australia will have minimal or no benefits
CONCLUSION Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
called the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the "the worst trade deal ever." Protestors decried TPP, a mammoth free trade agreement whose 12 members comprise nearly 40 percent of global GDP, as a “death sentence” for cancer and HIV patients, among others. If T.P.P. falls apart, it would be an advantage for China. Non-ratification would signal that Beijing gets to dictate policy in the region, and the attempt to integrate Vietnam comprehensively in a rules-based international economy fails. Whether TPP will with stand the test of time is for us to wait and watch !!13 Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty