Research On The Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a plurilateral intellectual propertyagreement developed outside of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)and the World Trade Organization (WTO), represents an attempt to introducemaximalist intellectual property standards in the international sphere, outside ofexisting institutional checks and balances. Since January2008,11rounds of secretnegotiation had been held by the11contracting parties including EU, USA, Japan,and finally they brought the discussion of ACTA text to a great completion. However,controversies and critics never disappear during the negotiating process towards theACTA text. Generally speaking, ACTA has the following characteristics: the leadingrole of the developed nations; the independent occasion for negotiation; the secrecy ofthe negotiating process; the fast pace of the completion; the plurilateral nature of theagreement and the intensifying of the IPR enforcement system. From thesecharacteristics we can realize that, the negotiating parties draw up ACTA as a higherstandards than other existing international treaties, so they can keep power in theinternational protection system of intellectual property. While ACTA deliberatelyavoids the developing countries, we can foresee that ACTA will be passed on todeveloping countries in various ways. From the contents of ACTA, ACTA weakensthe current multilateral IPR system and fully transfers the focal point from substantiverights to enforcement practices, thus exerting an overwhelming influence on theinternational system of IPR. In addition, as ACTA comes into effect and has beencarried out, world trade will be deeply influenced and new trade barrier will come out.Against such background, China should carry out special research and take activemeasures to avoid the adverse effect of ACTA.