IPTango: trade

Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts

Sunday, 6 February 2022

Tequila: finaliza la investigación bajo el Reglamento sobre obstáculos al comercio (TBR) de la UE

Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo February 06, 2022 No comments:

El 3 de febrero de 2022, la Comisión Europea anunció que finalizó formalmente su investigación sobre la denuncia referente a obstáculos al comercio en el sentido del Reglamento (UE) 2015/1843 (Reglamento sobre obstáculos al comercio, TBR en inglés) aplicados por México y consistentes en medidas que afectan la importación del Tequila. Consulta el anuncio aquí.

La denuncia

La denuncia había sido presentada por la Asociación de Cerveceros de Europa (The Brewers of Europe) debido a la decisión del Consejo Regulador del Tequila (CRT) de “ya no [conceder] certificados de exportación a … [TdS, una empresa] que produce y exporta «Tequila» … [a una] filial de Heineken NV … [debido a que] la cerveza Desperados de Heineken (una cerveza con aroma de «Tequila» añadido) infringe la [Norma Oficial Mexicana] aplicable a la utilización de la Indicación Geográfica (IG)” Tequila.

Durante la primera etapa de la investigación de la Comisión, intervinieron 22 partes interesadas, “en su mayoría representantes de asociaciones velando por la protección de las indicaciones geográficas europeas”. En efecto, oriGIn solicitó a la Comisión el reconocimiento como parte interesada considerando las implicaciones de la disputa en cuanto a los principios de las IG.

De igual manera, el procedimiento de examen también fue discutido por el Parlamento Europeo (lea aquí la pregunta parlamentaria planteada a la Comisión Europa, y consulte aquí la respuesta, ambas en inglés).

En mayo de 2021, la Comisión Europea finalizó el procedimiento de examen de la medida aplicada por México que afecta las exportaciones del Tequila a la UE (consulta el reporte aquí). Se concluyó “que si bien la medida plantea preocupaciones sobre el cumplimiento de México respecto de las normas de la OMC, específicamente la prohibición de restricciones a la exportación, está sujeta a una serie de procedimientos administrativos pendientes que pueden conducir a la revocación o modificación de la medida. Por lo tanto, la Comisión continuará monitoreando el resultado de los distintos procedimientos y, dependiendo de su resultado, podrá reevaluar las acciones a emprender” (énfasis añadido).

En octubre de 2021, la Asociación de Cerveceros de Europa informó a la Comisión Europea que “la empresa de la UE afectada había encontrado una solución con las autoridades mexicanas, lo que permitió la eliminación de los supuestos obstáculos al comercio”. En consecuencia, retiraron la denuncia.

*El 7 de febrero de 2022, se publicó en el Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea, la Decisión de Ejecución (UE) 2022/161 de la Comisión de 3 de febrero de 2022 por la que se da por concluido el procedimiento de examen relativo a los obstáculos al comercio, en el sentido del Reglamento (UE) 2015/1843, aplicados por los Estados Unidos Mexicanos y consistentes en medidas que afectan a la importación de Tequila. Consulta aquí la Decisión de Ejecución.

El retiro de la denuncia y la finalización de la investigación por parte de la Comisión Europea suceden al acuerdo amistoso entre CRT y Heineken, luego de que CRT iniciara varias acciones legales en la Unión Europea que involucraban el uso de la palabra Tequila en la cerveza Desperados. Consulta aquí mi reporte sobre el acuerdo amistoso al que llegaron las partes.

Créditos:

La imagen es cortesía de Dante Gbn.

*Artículo actualizado el 7 de febrero de 2022.

CRT y Heineken ponen fin amistosamente a la disputa por el uso de la palabra “Tequila” en la cerveza Desperados

Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo July 16, 2021 No comments:

CRT (el Consejo Regulador del Tequila) anunció que la disputa legal por el uso de la palabra Tequila en la cerveza Desperados ha terminado.

En un video difundido el 13 de julio de 2021, Miguel Ángel Domínguez Morales (presidente del Consejo Regulador del Tequila) indicó que se ha llegado a un acuerdo amistoso con Heineken luego de que CRT iniciara varias acciones legales en la Unión Europea que involucraban el uso de la palabra Tequila en la cerveza Desperados.

Aunque los términos permanecen confidenciales, Miguel destacó que el acuerdo es beneficioso para ambas partes y que el Tequila continúa fuertemente protegido en la Unión Europea [su segundo mercado de exportación más grande después de Estados Unidos].

De acuerdo al comunicado de prensa, anualmente se exportan alrededor de 20 millones de litros a la Unión Europea, donde se encuentran disponibles más de 50 marcas de tequila*.

El Tequila está protegido en la Unión Europea de conformidad con el Acuerdo entre México y la Comunidad Europea sobre el reconocimiento mutuo y la protección de las denominaciones en el sector de las bebidas espirituosas de 1997, modificado en 2004 y 2020.

[Book Notice] The TRIPS Agreement, Drafting History and Analysis

IPTango May 19, 2021 No comments:

The fifth edition of The TRIPS Agreement, Drafting History and Analysis, written by Professor Daniel Gervais (Vanderbilt University), was recently published.

The book contains “not only a historical view of the drafting history of the TRIPS Agreement but also practical commentary concerning its real-world application today. Some of the changes you will find with this edition include:

Updated and restructured comments on each article of the agreement.
A review of the latest reports by the Appellate Body and dispute-settlement panels.
Updated data on notification under the agreement.
A new section entitled The Life of TRIPS which covers work undertaken at the WTO on the agreement and ongoing discussions, organised by topic, including those on biotechnology, access to medicine, geographical indications and transfers of technology.
New perspectives on the future of TRIPS and its interpretation.
A clearer and easier to navigate format.”

The new edition “comes at a crucial period. It has been substantially updated, restructured and published in the aftermath of the landmark Australia tobacco plain packaging dispute and its subsequent appeals – the single most important case concerning the TRIPS Agreement in recent time”.

The author highlighted that the new edition “is a major rewrite”. It has a new “structure and all article comments updated” as well as a “new foreword by Antony Taubman” (WTO).

The book was published by Sweet & Maxwell. You can order here the print version, here the eBook/ProView version, and here both formats.

More information about ProView can be reviewed here.

Credit: the image is courtesy of Sweet & Maxwell.

2022 WTO Young Professionals Programme (YPP)

IPTango April 08, 2021 No comments:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is calling for applications for the 2022 WTO Young Professionals Programme (YPP).

The YPP is addressed to qualified young professionals up to the age of 32 years from a developing or least developed country.

Some of the requirements the applicants must fulfil are the following:

The applicants must hold an advanced university degree in law, economics, or other international trade-related subjects relevant to the WTO’s work.
The applicants must be fluent in English. Good working knowledge of Spanish is an advantage.
Applications must include a letter of motivation indicating up to three work areas which may include Intellectual Property Rights, Dispute Settlement, Trade and Development.

The selected applicant “will be placed in a specific Division of the WTO Secretariat in accordance with the needs and priorities of the Organization”.

The deadline to apply is 29 April 2021. More information here.

Image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay.

WTO Trade Economist Thematic Award

IPTango September 13, 2020 No comments:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is calling for submissions for the new Trade Economist Thematic Award.

The papers should not exceed 15,000 words and must consist of case studies addressing:

“trade policy responses to COVID-19, their design and effectiveness
the impact of measures adopted during the pandemic on goods and services trade
trade policy and trade effects of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises, women and rural areas.”

The author(s) of the papers must be trade experts who are completing or already hold a PhD or master’s degree from universities in developing countries.

The prize is CHF 5,000. The winning paper will be presented during a WTO webinar and “will be published in the WTO Working Paper series”.

The deadline to submit a paper is 30 September 2020. More information here.

Image of Nattanan Kanchanaprat on Pixabay.

The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patents in Latin America

Patricia Covarrubia September 26, 2017 No comments:

A new book is hitting the shelves. Prof Kenneth C. Shadlen, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK writes to inform us of his new book Coalitions and Compliance: The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patents in Latin America. Prof Kenneth teaches Development Studies in the Department of International Development at LSE.

Oxford University Press describes the book as

Coalitions and Compliance examines how international changes can reconfigure domestic politics. Since the late 1980s, developing countries have been subject to intense pressures regarding intellectual property rights. These pressures have been exceptionally controversial in the area of pharmaceuticals. Historically, fearing the economic and social costs of providing private property rights over knowledge, developing countries did not allow drugs to be patented. Now they must do so, an obligation with significant implications for industrial development and public health. This book analyses different forms of compliance with this new imperative in Latin America, comparing the politics of pharmaceutical patenting in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Coalitions and Compliance focuses on two periods of patent politics: initial conflicts over how to introduce drug patents, and then subsequent conflicts over how these new patent systems function. In contrast to explanations of national policy choice based on external pressures, domestic institutions, or Presidents' ideological orientations, this book attributes cross-national and longitudinal variation to the ways that changing social structures constrain or enable political leaders' strategies to construct and sustain supportive coalitions. The analysis begins with assessment of the relative resources and capabilities of the transnational and national pharmaceutical sectors, and these rival actors' efforts to attract allies. Emphasis is placed on two ways that social structures are transformed so as to affect coalition-building possibilities: how exporters fearing the loss of preferential market access may be converted into allies of transnational drug firms, and differential patterns of adjustment among state and societal actors that are inspired by the introduction of new policies. It is within the changing structural conditions produced by these two processes that political leaders build coalitions in support of different forms of compliance

A book about... tango is finished!
Lost in translation...

Prof Ken describes his book as

"a new book on the political economy of pharma patents, examining the debates about introducing new pharma patent systems, when this became compulsory post-TRIPS, and then, once in place, debates over revising how these systems function. The empirics are from three LatAm countries (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico)."

How I describe the book:

"haven’t read it yet…but looks promising."
"A must read."

In the near future will do a review.

To be continued…

More information here.

Exporting is Great

Patricia Covarrubia May 24, 2016 No comments:

Last week the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) did a road-show around the UK. The campaign was regional focusing on trade and investment for Latin America.

I have the opportunity to make a presentation alongside the UKIPO as part of my role for the Latin America IPR SME Helpdesk and while the room was not packed the feeling was the same: is IP important for my company?

One of the key issues that Rahul Rahhavan (UKIPO) and I emphasised was that IP is territorial. And before that, it was important to point out that the protection of IP is essential for a company; be it a logo, slogan, the packaging, the invention, at the end it is your time and money that have been invested. It was your company that made such a product; your name, logo, colour are the ones that have made the public aware of ‘your’ good/service that differ from the competition. Why then not protect it?

In the road-show there were different representatives from Latin American countries. I have the opportunity to speak with the UKIT from Venezuela, Richard Hyde and talk about my beautiful home country: are there any opportunities for investment? As we all know, many Latin American countries are suffering from political issues and economic (in)stabilities and one cannot turn a blind eye on this. So, I rather not disclose Venezuela's state of affairs.

One of my roles was to address the weakness of IP in the region such as the backlog presented in some of the national IPO and the lack of specialised IP courts. But even so, it is good to see that the region has good legislations in place that fulfil international IP standards. Moreover, it is good to know that the majority are members of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (anyone from Argentina that can enlighten us on the country status? It appears that Argentina signed but has not ratified the Treaty as yet). There is also the possibility to include countries for the international trade mark registration system (Madrid system). This part went well since everything cannot be gloomy - otherwise will scare the UK to invest in our continent!

Hopefully after this event that took place in Cambridge, London, Reading and Midlands we will see some investors crossing the pond and interchanging some know-how, technology, and skills.

Thanks UKIPO for extending the invitation to the Latin America IPR SME Helpdesk. We are here to make it easier for SMEs to protect their IPR in our region.

China and the Latin American Market

Patricia Covarrubia July 13, 2015 No comments:

Many in the IP-addicted community, and several others looking East most of the time have been and are used to see China and IP as a difficult marriage in a game of endless catch-up: domestic regulations striving to meet international standards, drafting and redrafting laws and regulations, complying with Western standards and accumulating enormous backlogs, breaking IP filing records, leading in counterfeiting and piracy world records, showing impressive recovery and determination, and occasionally falling behind again.

Since the “reform and opening up” policy initiated by the visionary Deng Xiaoping of 1978, the patent and the trademark laws alone went through a total eight amendments while the Central Government started including IP in every agenda of nearly every quinquennial plan until when in 2008 the most ambitious, aggressive and long reaching IP plan was enacted and pointed at reaching unprecedented goals by 2020. Targets were and remain enforcement, standards, domestic innovation, government procurement and more.

The same people, whom, as me, have acknowledged the heroic and speedily race of the dragon in building muscle, recently discovered a more subtle tone to the roar: the role of China in international, multi- and bilateral negotiations on IPRs. The undisputed role as factory of the World for years, as benchmark, as dealmaker- and breaker, has now become a rather vocal presence also in negotiations on IP protection and its enforcement, and in trade agreements.

China’s pragmatic approach to the international chessboard of trade has made another move as it became clear how the country would steer into the direction of securing resources and economic alliances, through regional trade and formalizing them in agreements (RTAs). China started the process in 2003 when it signed the CEPA (Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) with Hong Kong and carried on in negotiating more with Iceland, Pakistan, India, Macau, New Zealand, ASEAN, Australia and Chile. The main feature of these agreements indicates how China has started to drift away from being just an FTA-standard setting contributor with its vast weight, and rather becoming a pioneer for trade integration.

One would suppose that the recent China-Switzerland FTA could become a model for how much importance China poses to questions of IP protection, enhancement and opportunity in trade agreements. The reality seems to be that China remains a very selective and picky player and adopts a criteria based on the strengths of the contracting party. Agreements with countries such as Pakistan, Singapore, Macau, Iceland do not actually spell out well defined IP provisions or programs or include none at all. In RTAs with three countries of the Americas, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, the documentation unveils only a mild approach on IP interaction with China, relegating IP matters to just a few articles and preferring more broad assumptions such as social and economic welfare enhancement and so on. With Chile in particular, the parties have set out articles regarding Geographical Indications (Art. 10); encouraged research in science and technology (Art. 106.1) and, just shortly after provisions on Cultural Cooperation, an article denoting a generic tone of cooperation between the countries (Art. 111) which makes it ever more evident that for these countries it is not yet time to expect a far reaching an agreement as the one between China and Switzerland which regulates IP, to a large extent covering copyrights, trademarks, patents, and plant varieties.

Probably the most relevant provision and its Annex, for IP related issues in the agreement with Chile is to be found under Geographical Indications. The products at stake are less numerous than what was hoped for, where the GIs covered are only a wine from Shaoxing the Anxi Tieguan Yin tea, and pisco from Chile.

China imports about 23% of all Chilean yearly trade and is the second largest exporter to Chile, after the U.S., counting for 18% of overall Chilean imports by country. Given the strong impetus of Chilean economy and foreign direct investment into China, it is likely that not too long down the road from now Chile may play even a more crucial role for China in South America, hence gaining more credit for farther reaching agreements in the area of IP with China.

Post written by Ricardo Benussi (Business Advisory Associate --Italian Desk -- Dezan Shira & Associates)