The CPTPP, Intellectual Property and Trademarks
The corresponding chapter to Intellectual Property Right of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) [1] for it preceding text: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), has the job to cover areas such as patents, trademarks, industrial designs, geographic indicators, copyrights, commercial secrets and other forms of intellectual property, as well as their enforcement rules in the different States signatories of the international instrument.
It is worth to point out that the CPTPP isn’t yet in the commercial treaties Catalogue published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our country’s government by virtue that it has not been ratified.
Likewise, it has to be taken into account when consulting the text about the Agreement and the Treaty, that starting from the United States’ exit from the negotiations, the party States decided to suspend the application of certain dispositions in Intellectual Property matter.
Some of the suspensions leave without effect extension obligations for what the protection concept does to forbid the circumvention of the effective technological measures (Article 18.8); obligation exemption to grant patents to new uses, new use methods and a known product’s new use proceedings, as well as inventions derived from plants (Articles 18.37.2 and 18.37.4); avoid the extension in a patent’s duration (Article 18.46) eliminates the obligation to protect at least five year data starting from the sanitary registry for new pharmaceutical products (Article 18.50) : it is left without effect the obligation to increase the protection period of a work, interpretation/realization, or phonogram to 70 years (Mexico is the only country who grants 100 years of protection, but added in the TPP a precept to not give to other countries’ artists, protection for a period longer than the one granted by those countries in their own territory) (article 18.63); among others.[2]
Notwithstanding the above, part of the good news is that the classification of types of signs that can be registered as trademarks is maintained, which according to the article 18.18 can be visually imperceptible signs, as well as sounds.
Additionally, each Party must do the best efforts to register olfactory trademarks.
For all the above, especially for the historical context where emerges to the legal world this commercial instrument, is that the Treaty gets strong critics to the attempt to keep expanding and delve into the obligations about Intellectual Property. For example, different countries established that too much intellectual property regulations reduce the possibilities to generate innovation, raises substantially the medicines price and places the technology importation countries in a big competitive disadvantage situation.
[1] The pact was originally called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but when Donald Trump got into the White House and decided to retire its country from the bloc, negotiations started, to reach a new kind of treaty.
[2] The Ministry of Economy. (2018) Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) 1 DISPOSITIONS LIST WHOSE APPLICATION IS SUSPENDED. July 5th, 2018 from the Ministry of Economy web site: http://www.gob.mx/tpp
