Australia signed up to ACTA

Last Saturday, while half of us were trying not to watch Meat Loaf earn a reported $500,ooo (here, here or here) or tweeting, the Minister for Trade travelled to Japan to sign ACTA (the Department’s home page currently has a photograph of the actual signing).

According to the Minister’s Press Release:

The implementation of ACTA will not require legislative changes in Australia. Rather, trading partners will adapt their laws to the high standards of IP enforcement that already apply in Australia.

According to the USTR, no changes would be required to US law either.

The Minister for Trade’s Press Release states that Australia is one of 10 countries attending the signing + the EU. Howard Knopf reports that those signing included Australia, Canada,  Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, (South) Korea & USA, but the EU didn’t. According to ZDNet, the EU still working on it. So this may be a bit “optimistic”.

According to the USTR, the EU, Mexico and Switzerland did attend and “confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable”.

Lid dip @howardknopf