Wikileaks captures updated TPP "intellectual property" chapter, GMO's explicitly included
On the 16th of October, Wikileaks published the updated "Intellectual property" chapter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP, current as of May 16th, 2014 after the so-called Ho Chi Minh round of TPP negotiations. The 20th "secret" TPP meeting was held in Ho Chi Minh City.
Download the entire May 16th Intellectual Property chapter of the proposed TPP here
The "description" paragraph on the front page is this:
This is a revised version of the confidential draft treaty chapter from the Intellectual Property group of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks between the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam. The treaty is being negotiated in secret by delegations from each of these 12 countries, who together acount for 40% of global GDP. The chapter covers agreements on facilitations, restrictions and enforcement of regulations of copyright, trademark, patent, pharmaceuticals, counterfeit and piracy issues between the signatories of the agreement. The document was produced and distributed on May 16th 2014, after the 20th Round of Negotiations at Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
On Page 24 of the proposed chapter there is an explicit requirement that "inventions" regarding both plants and animals be patentable. On pages 39 and 40 are an explicit ban on technological means to defeat "digital rights management," which can be interpreted as including such things as programs used to play commercial DVD's on Linux computers or unlock "protected media playback" on Windows computers. In other words, GMO foods, patented seeds, and control of the Internet are all still part of the proposed TPP.
According to the Wikileaks article, there is still a lot of bracketed text, indicating countries involved in the TPP negotiations are still very far apart, and there has been little "motion" on this chapter other than removing surgical methods from global patent "protection" and allowing smaller countries to delay implementation of some provisons. Wikileaks calls the latter a "stalling" tactic.
It has been admitted that the reason the TPP drafts are being kept secret is to prevent the growth of public opposition to the treaty. This has worked poorly, with the public sensibly presuming the worst about any treaty kept secret even from members of Congress here in the US. The leaks of TPP chapters on Wikileaks and elsewhere have only confirmed public suspicions. The TPP is in real trouble: little negotiating "progress" and we seem to have stopped "fast track" trade treaty approval in Congress-for now. This treaty need to be killed all the way dead however, or it will sit around until administrations willing to sign onto it take power, one country at a time. As a "sign-on" treaty that nations can join any time, that is a real risk.
