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At the recently completed Vietnam round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), once again, no official text of negotiation was released. Therefore, we still need to speculate about its status, relying in part on a three-month-ago leaked version of the intellectual property chapter proposed by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

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I was asked recently to look at some data on employment in the copyright industry. This addresses one set of data points, the BLS estimates of US employment in the Sound Recording Industries.

Occupational Employment Statistics

NAICS 2-Digit Industry Specific Estimates, May 2010

51 Information 2,708,760

NAICS 3-Digit Industry Specific Estimates, May 2010

511 Publishing Industries, except Internet, 758,090, 28.0%
512 Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries, 371,450, 13.7%
515 Broadcasting (except internet), 292,010, 10.8%
517 Telecommunications, 909,780, 33.6%
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The USTR Special 301 Report was issued today. The full report is here, the USTR web page on the report is here, and a link to the USTR press release about the report is here. Continue Reading →

On August 7, 2008, Stewart Baker, the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security, sent a one page letter and a three page “Policy Position on Border Measures of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”

Stewart Baker was the General Counsel of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1994, and was appointed the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by George W Bush.

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USTR has rejected a KEI FOIA request for a Congressional Research Service study of ACTA that was done for Senate Ron Wyden. Senator Wyden shared the report with USTR. USTR acknowledges that it has possession of the document, but asserts it does not have control. Public Citizen has agreed to represent KEI in an appeal of the decision. Our administrative appeal was filed today.

March 23, 2011

FOIA Appeals Committee
Office of the Untied States Trade Representative
1724 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20508

Re: Freedom of Information Act Appeal

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The recently obtained US draft text for the intellectual property rights chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) contains provisions that go far beyond the requirements of international agreements as well as the standards of US law itself. One particular area of concern involves the broad definition of patent eligible subject matter that fails to provide for any exception from patentability for surgical methods or procedures. Nor does the draft language contain any exception for the enforcement of surgical method patents. Continue Reading →

KEI’s comments on the USTR 2011 Special 301 Review are available here.

For further background on the 301 process, see: /ustr/special301 Continue Reading →

USTR has issued a request for comments on ACTA. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2011. The notice gives very little guidance regarding the issues the USTR would like addressed in the comments.

[Billing Code 3190-W1-P]

Office of the United States Trade Representative

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Request for Comments from the Public

Agency: Office of the United States Trade Representative

Action: Request for written submissions from the public

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