Minister calls for submissions on anti-counterfeiting agreement

The Minister of Commerce, Simon Power, is calling for submissions on a range of intellectual property proposals that may be considered during ongoing discussions around the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

“These intellectual property rights proposals relate to border-protection measures, and civil and criminal enforcement provisions that are not currently part of our law,” Mr Power says.

“We expect information gathered from these submissions to help develop New Zealand’s approach to these proposals.”

New Zealand, along with trading partners including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US, has been discussing the development of ACTA, which aims to set a higher benchmark for the enforcement of intellectual property rights that countries can join voluntarily.

“So far, ACTA’s participants have discussed only intellectual property enforcement issues in the physical world, and this is the purpose of these consultations," Mr Power says.

“The next round of discussions is expected to include enforcement issues in the digital environment.

"Once we know how the other ACTA participants view these issues, the Ministry of Economic Development will undertake a further round of consultation on these issues.

“I encourage interested parties to provide submissions on the various enforcement proposals identified in the ministry’s discussion paper."

The discussion paper can be found at: http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____40774.aspx

Submissions can be sent to: trademarks@med.govt.nz. The closing date is Monday 29 June 2009.