Today’s leak of country-by-country positions on the Trans Pacific Partnership reveals the strong isolation of the U.S. on many intellectual property issues and the wide ranging Canadian opposition to many U.S. proposals. With International Trade Minister Ed Fast heading to Singapore for a ministerial round of negotiations, Canada is apparently far apart from the U.S. on many key issues. The areas of disagreement run throughout the IP chapter and include positions on copyright term, digital locks, criminalization of copyright, parallel imports, patents, trademark scope, pharmaceutical protection, and geographical indications. Moreover, there is a notable disagreement on a cultural exception, which Canada wants but the U.S. does not.

A look at the areas of disagreement from the Huffington Post leak:

Chapter

Issues of Disagreement

Market Access state-owned commercial importing enterprises

state-owned exporting agricultural enterprises

annex on cheese

annex on biotechnology Rules of Origin certification without backing documents Customs De Minimis of US$200 (all TPP countries oppose the US on this) Technical Barriers to Trade Incorporation of WTO TBT agreement Government Procurement Market access for SMEs Investment Central Reserve Bank

Land appropriation annex E-commerce Privacy obligations (US reserves position) Environment MEAs: cooperative focus and not subject to dispute settlement

Dispute settlement for chapter

Biodiversity (elimination of para 3, 4, 5)

Climate change (shorten the article) Labour Dispute settlement Legal Medicines annex

Tobacco exception (Canada reserves)

Cultural exception

Extension of obligations: weaker formulation

US proposal for entry into force Intellectual Property Patentability criteria

Supplementary protection (all TPP countries oppose US)

Extend protection to new uses

Pharmaceutical linkage

Pharmaceutical data protection

Copyright Technological protection measures

Copyright term (all TPP countries oppose US)

Copyright parallel importation (all TPP countries oppose US)

Copyright ISPs (US and Australia isolated)

Criminal offences for unintentional copyright and trademark infringement (all TPP countries oppose US)

Camcording

Ratification of other IP treaties

National treatment (maintain TRIPS exclusions)

Trademarks inclusion of scent marks

Geographical indications – system for nullification

Geographical indications – no prohibition on third party use of translated GI

Geographical indications – existence of GI not reason to reject trademark registration