The European Parliament has voted favourably to a resolution on the adoption of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In this resolution, however, the Parliament asks the Commission to confirm that ACTA’s implementation will have no impact on fundamental rights and data protection, on the ongoing EU efforts to harmonise intellectual property rights enforcement measures, or on e-commerce.

The resolution welcomes Commission's statements that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will fully respect the  existing EU intellectual property rights legislation, not going beyond it o requiring any amendment, given that EU law is already considerably more advanced than the current international standards.

The European Parliament already expressed in several occasion in the past its rejection about the lack of transparency under which ACTA Agreement was being negotiated. MEPs now highlight the considerable improvement in this sense, and welcome the fact that since the negotiating round in New Zealand, Parliament has been fully informed of the course of the negotiations.

The Parliament also welcome Commission statements that neither personal searches nor the so-called ‘three strikes’ procedure will be introduced by the agreement. As they point out, no ACTA signatory, and particularly not the EU, may be mandated to introduce 'three strikes' or similar regimes, as an internet disconnection penalty for three online copyright infringements.

The aim of the ACTA agreement, between the EU, the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland, is to strengthen the enforcement of intellectual property rights and to help to combat counterfeiting and piracy of goods such as clothing of luxury brands, music, and films. For that reason, MEPs welcome the fact that ACTA membership is not exclusive and that additional developing and emerging countries may join.

However, while acknowledging the efforts made by the Commission to include the protection of geographical indications within the scope of ACTA, MEPs also regret that the agreement does not define ‘counterfeit geographical indications’, as this omission could create confusion.

The eleventh and final round of ACTA negotiations was held in Tokyo from 23 September to 2 October. However, ACTA is not yet initialled and the Commission will have to determine the point at which negotiations are technically finalised. For that purpose, a technical meeting to finalise the legal wording will take place in Sydney from 30 November to 3 December 2010.