Antigua Files for Remedies- $3.4 billion per year in intellectual prop

[TheEngineer]

All: there's an informative article on the U.S. WTO situation at Bush Decision to Withdraw U.S. Gambling Sector From WTO Jurisdiction Highlights Hazards of Fast-Track-Enabled Trade Agreements. It supports the USTR's actions, but it's interesting information for us to know.

[oldbookguy]

Just read the article and sent the following response via the contact link:

I just read your article and the following quote from it shows how uninformed many are; "But the fact that this action will trigger major demands by other countries for compensation under WTO rules also highlights how the fast track negotiating system has enabled a series of trade pacts that undermine the public interest."
This WTO agreement was done under the Clinton Administration LONG before 'fast track' ever existed. In-fact, this agreement took YEARS to work out.

I suggest GET IT RIGHT or DON'T GET IT AT ALL!!!!!

False information is the problem anymore, no one checks their facts.....


I Suggest we fill the in box there correcting even this bad information.

obg

[Legislurker]

Don't you love the line about state's attorney generals wanting the WTO committments withdrawn in the cross-border gaming sector? Id lay 3 to 1 40 state AGs have no clue what that phrase means.

[TheEngineer]

Good article at http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-07-04/story3.htm.

ANTIGUA GAMBLING DISPUTE: MAJOR ECONOMIES DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM US

The Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda is no longer alone in its efforts to make it harder for the US to avoid complying with multiple WTO dispute rulings against Washington's restrictions on overseas internet gambling.

Eight Members, including the EU, Costa Rica, and Japan served notice before a 22 June deadline that they will seek compensation for lost revenues potentially worth billions of dollars if the US uses rarely-invoked General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) procedures to explicitly exclude internet gambling from its multilateral liberalisation commitments (see BRIDGES Weekly, 30 May 2007).

Meanwhile, Antigua announced that it would seek to impose USD 3.443 billion in annual retaliatory sanctions against a range of US patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property, as well as services companies.....

[KEW]

[ QUOTE ]
Good article at http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-07-04/story3.htm.

ANTIGUA GAMBLING DISPUTE: MAJOR ECONOMIES DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM US

The Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda is no longer alone in its efforts to make it harder for the US to avoid complying with multiple WTO dispute rulings against Washington's restrictions on overseas internet gambling.

Eight Members, including the EU, Costa Rica, and Japan served notice before a 22 June deadline that they will seek compensation for lost revenues potentially worth billions of dollars if the US uses rarely-invoked General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) procedures to explicitly exclude internet gambling from its multilateral liberalisation commitments (see BRIDGES Weekly, 30 May 2007).

Meanwhile, Antigua announced that it would seek to impose USD 3.443 billion in annual retaliatory sanctions against a range of US patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property, as well as services companies.....

[/ QUOTE ]


Any opinions on this section:

"However, even if Antigua were to be allowed to legally break US patents, trademarks, and copyrights, the legitimate copies thus produced would only be eligible for sale in the country's tiny internal market. It is not clear whether Antigua could, for instance, export copied drugs to say, the EU, without breaching international or domestic rules"

[Legislurker]

I think that is murky because IP sanctions have been levied once or twice, and the country(s) they were levied against quickly complied/negotiated or whatnot to end the sanctions before resale occured. This is an unfamiliar and unknown area, but I think the EU's track record helping smaller countries at the WTO they would allow pirated materials in their market.

[Jay Cohen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Good article at http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-07-04/story3.htm.

ANTIGUA GAMBLING DISPUTE: MAJOR ECONOMIES DEMAND COMPENSATION FROM US

The Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda is no longer alone in its efforts to make it harder for the US to avoid complying with multiple WTO dispute rulings against Washington's restrictions on overseas internet gambling.

Eight Members, including the EU, Costa Rica, and Japan served notice before a 22 June deadline that they will seek compensation for lost revenues potentially worth billions of dollars if the US uses rarely-invoked General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) procedures to explicitly exclude internet gambling from its multilateral liberalisation commitments (see BRIDGES Weekly, 30 May 2007).

Meanwhile, Antigua announced that it would seek to impose USD 3.443 billion in annual retaliatory sanctions against a range of US patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property, as well as services companies.....

[/ QUOTE ]


Any opinions on this section:

"However, even if Antigua were to be allowed to legally break US patents, trademarks, and copyrights, the legitimate copies thus produced would only be eligible for sale in the country's tiny internal market. It is not clear whether Antigua could, for instance, export copied drugs to say, the EU, without breaching international or domestic rules"

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not set in stone either way and it would be up to the WTO panel to decide.