Kirk Urges Patience On ACTA
April 26, 2010
| 3:54 PM
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk Monday defended efforts to craft an international agreement aimed at curbing the counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property against those who say it will not adequately protect the rights of IP users.
Following a Capitol Hill forum to commemorate World Intellectual Property Day, Kirk told reporters that some groups that have been critical of the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement put out "a lot of the misinformation about ACTA." He added that the release of a public text last week of the draft ACTA has shown that a lot of the rumors about the bill's provisions, many of which related to the agreement's Internet provisions, were not accurate.
"We're still in the middle of the process," Kirk said, adding that "let's not prejudge anything." He also said his office has "gone to great lengths to hear" from all the stakeholders involved in the ACTA debate and will continue to do so.
When asked if ACTA can be concluded this year as many IP groups have urged, Kirk said he didn't want to handicap the agreement's timeline but added that it is in the interest of the United States to get the strongest agreement possible.
Prior to the release of the ACTA text, some critics voiced concern that ACTA might mandate that Internet service providers implement a graduated response system to crack down on serial IP infringers that could lead to a cutoff of Internet service. Sean Flynn, associate director of the Information Justice and Intellectual Property Program at American University's Washington College of Law, noted that while the latest draft does not include language requiring such a system, it does contain bracketed text that states the agreement "shall not effect the possibility" of countries to implement such graduated response systems.
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