Countries finalize ACTA agreement text
Participating countries in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations said Monday they have finalized the text of the agreement, after resolving a few issues that remained after the final round of negotiations in Tokyo.
Following legal verification of the drafting, the proposed agreement will then be ready to submit to the participants' respective authorities to undertake relevant domestic processes, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in a statement.
Participants in the negotiations were Australia, Canada, the European Union and its member states, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.
ACTA aims to create a comprehensive international framework to collectively combat intellectual property rights infringement, in particular the proliferation of counterfeiting and piracy. It includes updated provisions on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, including provisions on civil, criminal, border and digital environment enforcement measures; strengthened cooperation mechanisms among ACTA parties to assist in their enforcement efforts; and establishment of best practices for effective IPR enforcement.