Oct 6 (Reuters) - Countries negotiating a pact to fight global trade in pirated goods issued a near-complete draft text on Wednesday.
The following lists some of the outstanding differences as well as compromises in the text, issued after a final round of negotiations in Tokyo last week following criticism of the secrecy of the negotiations.
DIFFERENCES
* Civil enforcement
The United States does not want the agreement to allow civil damages for patent infringement.
* Enforcement of measures at the border
The text currently says that participating states, when enforcing the protection of intellectual property at the border, must not do so in a way that discriminates "unreasonably" between different types of intellectual property rights, such as copyright, trademarks, patents and geographical indicators.
The EU says the use of "unreasonably" is imprecise. It is there at the request of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, who EU officials say have less stringent border measures than the EU itself.
The EU also objects to text saying that right holders can ask the authorities not to release suspect goods "where appropriate", arguing that this too is imprecise.
* Scope of measures for the Internet
The United States, backed by South Korea and Mexico, focuses on copyright questions, such as illegal file-sharing of music and films. But the EU wants to broaden Internet measures to include trademarks, allowing it to target people who set up websites to sell fake goods.
* Treatment of films taped in a cinema to make illegal copies ("camcording")
The United States, under pressure from Hollywood, wants all countries to impose criminal penalties for this, while the EU prefers to give them the option of doing so.
COMPROMISES
* Geographical indicators
The EU secured a broadening of language in Tokyo to cover all intellectual property, giving protection to "geographical indicators" -- the names of wines and foods based on places such as Champagne and Parma ham, a key concern of the European Union.
Such names would be protected under each country's existing rules, for instance trademark legislation in the United States or the EU's stricter geographical indicators register in the EU.
But names that are not currently protected in a country because they are seen as generic would remain so, allowing Kraft for instance to continue to sell parmesan cheese that does not come from the Italian region.
The geographical names (appellations) of wines and spirits are already protected under World Trade Organization rules without needing to be trademarked. The EU is pushing to extend this form of protection to geographical names of foods, but is being resisted by the United States and other New World producers. (For draft ACTA text go to http://link.reuters.com/xew27p) (Compiled by Jonathan Lynn)