IPR Chapters in FTAs Costa Rica - China and Peru-Korea
On August 1st, two new Free Trade Agreements entered into force: Costa Rica-China and Peru-Korea.Following the trend in recent bilateral agreements around the world, both FTAs include Chapters on Intellectual Property. While they do not include standards as high as those imposed by EU or US in their FTAs, it is interesting to see that they do contain some substantial provisions, in particular the one between Peru and Korea.
The FTA between Costa Rica and China includes specific provisions on generic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore and on geographical indications apart from general obligations to comply with TRIPS and Doha Declaration on Public Health, and on technical cooperation. There is a provision on border measures as well.
The FTA between Peru and Korea provides for similar obligations in these same fields, but it also include provisions on copyrights and related rights and extended provisions on enforcement.
These treaties are just another manifestation of the increasing relevance of trade relations between Asia-Pacific and Latin American countries. It would be interested to see the effects on the international protection of IPR of the regulation of trade relations among them. In this sense other important negotiations to follow are those of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement or TPP. Here is a good article on that in Spanish.
