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Europe Moves To Counter Piracy
by Danielle Belopotosky
The European Commission on Tuesday proposed short-term anti-counterfeit measures that focus on improved standards for customs operations and international cooperation on enforcing intellectual property rights. The goal is to stop global distribution networks for counterfeit goods.
Under the plan, an electronic system would monitor the flow of customs information by culling tidbits from intellectual property databases and company listings of copyright and patent holders. As fake goods are caught entering the European Union, the system would send alerts to other customs ports throughout the union.
The commission also said it would consider proposing amendments to the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. In an effort to reinforce international cooperation, the commission might propose that EU nations apply anti-counterfeit controls to exports, transit and transshipment goods, in addition to imported products. The commission emphasized bilateral cooperation with the United States, China and Japan.
"The growing number of counterfeit seizures at the EU's external borders has convinced me of the need to put in place a strategic plan for short-term action," EU Taxation and Customs Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs said.
The increase in pirated goods has been exacerbated by Internet sales, according to the commission. More than 30 percent of goods seized by the postal service in 2004 originated from online sales.
Counterfeits that have penetrated EU borders increased more than 12 percent in 2004 and have skyrocketed 1,000 percent since 1998, according to the commission. EU customs patrols seize more than 100 million items per year. Phony computers and equipment accounted for just 1 percent, or 793,000, of the seizures in 2004, while fake compact discs, including software, music and games, accounted for 18 percent, or more than 18 million.
Europe's Take On The WTO Talks
Nine weeks out from the next round of WTO talks, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on Monday urged trade negotiators to advance agriculture and market-access agreements in order to move forward the WTO trade agenda established in Doha, Qatar, in 2001.
Negotiators hope to mend a rift over agriculture subsidies before the next talks, which are set for Hong Kong this December. "If we do not advance this negotiation in concrete terms this week -- and amongst ourselves today -- we will have to acknowledge that we may simply run out of time for Hong Kong," Mandelson said in a statement that was circulated among trade negotiators at the informal meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, on Monday.
Mandelson also issued the European Union's conditional negotiating proposals at the meeting.
The region offered to slash some agriculture subsidies by 70 percent, while the United States offered to cut its domestic support by 60 percent -- or 5 percent more than the European Union requested. "We did that because, frankly, we wanted to be even more ambitious than was expected," U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portmansaid Tuesday at a press conference in Geneva.
Confident that those proposals will move forward, Mandelson said it is time for negotiators to begin developing language for trade in services. "The modalities must set a level of ambition that is high enough to match the levels of ambition we set in agriculture and [non-agricultural market access]," he wrote in a memorandum after the Zurich meeting.
Mandelson also stressed the need to meet the obligations of the development round -- to leave Hong Kong with clear proposals that offer better market access for the least-developed countries.
In other trade news, Nicaragua's legislature on Monday approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The U.S. Congress ratified the deal June 30, and President Bush signed implementing legislation into law Aug. 2.
Britain Plans To Unveil Anti-Terrorism Plan
Great Britain on Wednesday is expected to unveil an anti-terrorism bill that would add 15 international organizations that promote terrorist acts to a list of banned terrorist organizations. Such groups often post propaganda on Web sites.
Pakistani radical Islamist groups are among those to be banned, according to the office of British Home Secretary Charles Clarke. Groups already outlawed in Britain include al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic Army of Aden.
Since the July 7 terrorist bombings on London's subway system, the British government has taken steps to enhance its anti-terrorism laws.
West Africa's Regional Telecom Approach
Telecommunications regulators from 15 west African nations have agreed to create a harmonized information and communications technology market, which would establish a regulatory framework that models the European Union.
Regulators from Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo met last week to craft the market-based approach to ICT services. Regulators hope the framework will spur investment and development in the region, according to the U.N.-allied International Telecommunication Union.
The framework covers interconnection telephone rates, licensing, phone-numbering, spectrum management, universal access to services and other ICT policy issues. "These guidelines are in keeping with international best practices but tailored to the west African market," said Major John Tandoh, the acting director general and chief executive officer of the National Communications Authority in Ghana.
The heads of state and communications ministries from the Economic Community of West African States, as well as the West African Monetary Union, must approve the guidelines. Other community members include Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Toward A New Global Wi-Fi Standard
A group of 27 technology companies from around the globe on Monday announced the creation of a standards coalition to develop and promote advanced wireless-networking products.
The Enhanced Wireless Consortium aims to speed the adoption of an 802.11n standard in order to build common specification guidelines for new Wi-Fi products. The group's specifications would support applications that require data transmission rates of up to 600 million bits per second. The members of consortium include Apple Computer, Intel, China's Lenovo, and Japan's Sony.
But the group may be at odds with the World Wide Spectrum Efficiency Consortium, a similar group with its own proposal for 802.11n standards. The competing group includes the U.S.-based Wi-Fi vendor Airgo Networks, Motorola and Finland's Nokia.
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