ACTA and Consumers

On April 21, 2010, an official version of the consolidated negotiating text of the proposal Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was published. On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) hosted a series of roundtable discussions about the new ACTA text at the US Department of commerce, Washington, DC from 9am to 3pm.

The program for the meeting was as follows:

9AM Introduction and Welcome
EU co-chair of TACD IP Policy Committee: Jill Johnstone, of Consumer Focus, UK
US co-chair of TACD IP Policy Committee, James Love, KEI
Skip Jones, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Trade Agreement Compliance

9:10 AM Panel 1: The impact of ACTA on copyrighted goods
The Chair will be Jill Johnstone, of Consumer Focus, UK.
Leading the discussion initially will be:
Jonathan Band, Policy Bandwidth
Sherwin Siy, Public Knowledge
Professor Peter Yu, Drake University Law School, author of "the Graduated Response."
Gwen Hinze, EFF
Kostas Rossoglou, BEUC

10:30 AM Panel 2: The impact of ACTA on markets for medicine and other patented or trademarked goods and services
Chairing the session will be Judit Rius, of KEI
Leading the discussion initially will be:
Sean Flynn, American University
Rohit Malpani, Oxfam
Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen
Sophie Bloemen, Health Action International
Emi McLean, MSF

12PM Lunch

1 PM Panel 3: The ACTA negotiating process and the future role of ACTA as an institution.
Chair, TBA. Leading the discussion initially will be:
Professor Susan Sell, George Washington University
David Hammerstein, TACD
Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen
Joe Karaganis, SSRC
Susan Wilson, US Department of Commerce
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology