KEI has received a letter dated September 28, 2010, from Lic. Alfredo Rendón Algara – Director General Adjunto de Propiedad Industrial of Mexico (IMPI). The letter from the Mexican government is in response to KEI’s earlier letter to C. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, Presidente Constitucional de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, regarding the position of the Mexican government in the ACTA negotiations. (See also the reply from the President, here). In general, the letter is defensive, and fails to engage in most of the substantive concerns of our earlier letter.
The following are notes from the letter of Lic. Alfredo Rendón Algara:
The letters claims that “the deteriorated international trade”, “the intimate connection” between piracy and terrorism, specially on music, the losses produced by “Chinese and pirate” goods, and “the obsolescence of previous international instrument on intellectual property” are the main reasons that move the Mexican government to become part of the negotiations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The letter further claims that piracy and counterfeiting are damaging the Mexican economy, but in only cites studies by rights holder organizations and other unidentified researches.
The letter explains that the Mexican government considers that the current regime of intellectual property protection is insufficient to prevent the deterioration of Mexico’s international trade position and to address the challenges of Piracy and counterfeiting, particularly measured in terms of lost work positions, closed companies, and economical loses by right holders. The letter says that efforts made by WIPO and the WTO were “sufficient in its moment”, but not any longer, since the “technological advance and the globalization have already advanced unachievable” (sic). In fact, even the so-called “WIPO Internet Treaties”, always according to the letter of the IMPI, “have became obsolete and this agreement (ACTA) would update those instruments”, even if yet to be fully implemented in Mexico.
For the aforementioned reasons, the Mexican government explains, several countries initiated preparatory talks in 2006, which, after adding other countries, became the ACTA negotiations in 2008.
After summarizing the purpose and content of the agreement, and mentioning the Mexican agencies involved in the negotiations, the letter mentions one of the concern expressed by KEI: the increasing cost of enforcing the law ex-officio by prosecutors and custom authorities. According to the letter, in parallel to negotiating ACTA, Mexico has worked on modification to its domestic law, by allowing ex-officio criminal prosecution. The letter explains that the Mexican Congress has approved those modifications, and the Federal Government should be promulgating them soon.
Finally, the letter expresses that, with the purpose of making knowledgeable the state of the negotiation, the draft of the ACTA agreement was published in January 2010 (referring to the leaked version of the agreement, and not the official April 2010 version), and the government has held two public meetings on the matter, in January and September. Unfortunately, for “legal reasons,” the current state of negotiation is maintained in secret, the IMPI’s letter acknowledges.
KEI appreciates the fact that the Mexican government has responded to our letter, but is disappointed that the Mexican government and IMPI relies on the results of questionable studies, and fails to address most of the specific concerns expressed in our earlier letter.
The answer of the Mexican government is available in Spanish.