Brussels, 16/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - The New Zealand capital, Wellington, hosted the 8th round of talks from 12 to 16 April on the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA), which has been the focus of negotiation since 2007 between Australia, Canada, South Korea, United States, Morocco, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. Under the chairmanship of New Zealand's minister for trade, Tim Groser, participants at this 8th negotiating session, which involved stakeholder representatives, held intense discussion which, as a joint press release points out, allowed delegations to have a much improved understanding of respective national regimes and how such regimes work in practice. On this basis, considerable progress was made toward narrowing existing differences in the areas of civil enforcement, border measures, criminal enforcement and special measures for the digital environment. Participants also held constructive debate on the scope of intellectual property rights covered in ACTA. Generally speaking, the statement says, the session led to a general feeling that negotiations have reached a point where making a draft text available to the public will help the process of reaching final agreement. For that reason, based on the specific momentum provided by the meeting, participants came to the unanimous agreement that the time is right for making available to the public the consolidated text which will reflect the substantial progress made at this round of talks in Wellington. It was agreed the text should be made public on 21 April. Agreeing that the draft text should be released in the particular circumstances of this negotiation, participants reaffirmed the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of their respective positions in trade negotiations. Furthermore, the joint statement reads, ACTA will not interfere with a signatory's ability to respect its citizens' fundamental rights and liberties, and will be consistent with the WTO Agreement of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), and will respect the declaration on TRIPS and public health. The joint statement also stresses there is no proposal to oblige ACTA participants to require border authorities to search travellers' baggage or their personal electronic devices. Also, it states, ACTA will not address the crossborder transit of legitimate generic medicines. Finally, while participants recognise the importance of responding effectively to the challenge of internet piracy, they confirmed that no participant is proposing to require governments to mandate a “graduated response” or “three strikes and you're out” approach to copyright infringement on the internet - providing a warning or fine to penalise the first two illegal downloads followed by interruption of internet access to punish a third illegal download. The participant delegations agreed that the next and 9th round of talks would be held in Switzerland in June 2010 so that ACTA might possibly be concluded by the end of the year. (E.H./transl.jl)