The recently completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not fully
consistent with European Union law and goes beyond international law in some of
its aspects, concluded a group of intellectual property law experts from
universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
In an open declaration, they point, for example, to criminal law sanctions not
yet harmonised in EU law, but also to border measures extended to simple
trademark infringements ?based on mere similarity of signs, risk of confusion
and even the protection for well-known trademarks against dilution.?
The latter not only is a clear extension of existing EU legislation, ?but
particularly worrisome for international trade in generic medicines which could
be seized based on allegations of ordinary infringements,? the scholars wrote.
EU and broader international law also provide more explicit safeguards, omitted
in ACTA alongside the much more detailed provisions of extended IP protection.
The signatories of the declaration ? which
can be signed by interested parties until 7 February ? requests EU institutions
and national legislators to withhold consent to ACTA until ACTA has been made
compatible with EU law.
Meanwhile, the European Commission (the EU executive branch) still has not
addressed a critical question submitted by Liberal Member of European
Parliament Marietje Schaake about the legal nature of ACTA.
The College of Commissioners still has to accept the ACTA text ? expected in
early February, according to a Commission spokesperson. Only then can the
legislative procedure involving Parliament and the Council of member states
begin. Some EU member states also will put ACTA before their national
parliaments.
