According to 18.37.3 and 4, microorganisms cannot be excluded from patentability. I assume this is to allow patenting of things like probiotics. However, all humans rely their skin, mouth, and gut floras to be healthy. If the bacteria and yeast in that flora can't be excluded from patentability, are they considered not a part of the human animal? I understand that probiotics should be protected, but I wonder if someone could take advantage of this and claim patent on any naturally occurring microorganism by just isolating it and showing that it has some use.

Something else not specified in this section are viruses. Viruses are not strictly microorganisms, and no mention is made of them, but yet they can be manufactured and used for treatments- recently even for cancer:

http://www.mayo.edu/research/departments-divisions/departmen...

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/nov/02/fda-approval-...

If viruses could be excluded from patentability since they aren't mentioned, then any research or manufacturing done would not be patentable, and therefore some companies may hesitate to invest too heavily in research.

Note the ex officio statement in the IP chapter: even if a copyright holder does not want to initiate border measures (e.g. destroy fanzines), this can be enforced by governments, http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/trade-agreement/transpacif.... In 2013, Japanese lawyers warned about the fair use implications, http://japanitlaw.blogspot.com/2013/01/tpps-effect-on-fanzin... & http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/IP_Theor...

  Article 18.76: Special Requirements related to Border Measures 

  5. Each Party shall provide that its competent authorities 
  may initiate border measures ex officio [118] with respect 
  to goods under customs control that are:  

    (a) imported; (b) destined for export; (c) in transit,

  and that are suspected of being counterfeit trademark 
  goods or pirated copyright goods. 

  [118]  For greater certainty, ex officio action does 
         not require a formal complaint from a third party 
         or right holder.

I suspect it will take a while for all of this text to be digested and for people much smarter than me to find a lot of nasty stuff in there.

Meanwhile, I found the New Zealand and US side letter amusing:

>To the extent contemplated in the Code, New Zealand shall not permit the sale of any product as Bourbon Whiskey or Tennessee Whiskey, unless it has been manufactured in the United States according to the laws of the United States governing the manufacture of Bourbon Whiskey and Tennessee Whiskey and the product complies with all applicable regulations of the United States for the sale or export as Bourbon Whiskey or Tennessee Whiskey.

I assume this must be quite prevalent in New Zealand if they wrote a letter specific to this one issue. I didn't see a similar letter with France regarding cognac or champagne.

New Zealand copyright laws extended from 50 to 70 years with grandfather clause. While it aligns with the Mickey Mouse clause used by other countries, it goes against the original intent to benefit society as people can't extend or make use of copyright works for an extra 20 years.

There is also provision to unlock DVDs purchased overseas that is still retained.

I could not see provision to restrict tax free havens or to curb tax avoidance by multinational corporations.

From the "Legal and Institutional" section, http://www.tpp.mfat.govt.nz/assets/docs/TPP_factsheet_Legal-...

  Any Party may withdraw from TPP by providing 
  six months notice of withdrawal.

>Article 14.17: No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.

Does this make GPL unenforceable, or am I reading too much into this?

> 2. No Party shall require a covered person to use or locate computing facilities in that Party’s territory as a condition for conducting business in that territory.

No Russian server situations

http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/trade-agreement/transpacif...

In 19.1 on labour, party nations are required to "adopt and maintain in its statutes and regulations" certain rights, including

- "freedom of association"

- "a prohibition on the worst forms of child labour"

- "the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation"

- "acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health."

Sounds nice, but there is absolutely no guidance on what types of regulations these incredibly subjective "rights" would require, and I imagine every party will interpret them differently (and probably conclude that their existing regulations already provide all of these guarantees.)

EFF has published their initial analysis of the final text, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/release-full-tpp-text-...

"The most shocking revelation from today’s release is how the TPP's Investment chapter defines "intellectual property" as an asset that can be subject to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process. What this means is that companies could sue any of the TPP nations for introducing rules that they allege harm their right to exploit their copyright interests—such as new rights to use copyrighted works for some public interest purpose. A good example of this might be a country wishing to limit civil penalties for copyright infringement of orphan works ...

... the E-Commerce chapter has the next most serious ramifications for users ... it restricts the use of data localization laws, which are laws that require companies to host servers within a country’s borders, or prohibit them from transferring certain data overseas ... The E-Commerce chapter ... imposes a strict test that such measures must not amount to “arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade”—a test that would be applied by an investment court, not by a data protection authority or human rights tribunal."

EFF wrote previously about conflict between TPP and US Copyright Office efforts to improve the situation with Orphan Works, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/users-ustr-dont-sign-a..., "... the Register of Copyrights acknowledges a need to do something about the fact that "orphan works are a frustration, a liability risk, and a major cause of gridlock in the digital marketplace." The report includes a discussion of several proposals that could expand access to orphan works. One proposal is to put limits on the legal consequences for those who do anything technically infringing, in order to make it less daunting to take a chance and use them."

In Soviet Russia trade agreement protects you from company.

In America trade agreement protects company from you!

/joke

I'm curious- has anybody compared this official text with the leaks to see how close they were or what they may have changed in the last few weeks?

Article 13.6: International Mobile Roaming

1. The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on promoting transparent and reasonable rates for international mobile roaming services that can help promote the growth of trade among the Parties and enhance consumer welfare.

That sounds... great!

I would suggest that while reading this and forming an opinion, you take all the consequences of the treaty into account.

In something this large there will definitely be points that are objectionable, but that doesn't mean TPP as a whole isn't good for the parties involved.

Reaching agreement between governments that span the globe and govern hundreds of millions of citizens requires a lot of horse-trading and compromise. The final agreement can still be good for the world, even if there are objectionable provisions.

Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3rlu3g/full_text...

I've heard many folks complain about TPP on the premise that it will destroy and/or degrade American jobs. I believe there is lots of truth to that--people in other countries are usually willing to work for less than Americans.

Even so, TPP will help job-hungry people in other countries (at least slightly) by dumping more jobs into their job markets. So, if we're going to help Americans by ditching TPP, we're going to do so at the expense of people in other countries.

Is that the right trade? Helping Americans by hurting others? Maybe it is.

Or maybe I'm missing something... Thanks for your thoughts!

We were told that the draft says that ISP's are liable for copyright violations on their network or something. Is that in the final document? Anybody knows enough legal language in order to clarify this issue?

Also does the document say anything about terms/expiration of copyright? How does it treat creative commons?

how does the final document compare to the leaked draft?

Here is the USG version including the US letter exchanges: https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

When decisions are irreversibly taken that will bind the future of citizens without their consents it has to be named by its real name: autoritarism.

Technocracy boils down to aristocracy by diploma (eventually related to birth) instead of pure aristocracy. Still, the people of the nations should be the one edicting the laws. And if we mandate people to do laws in our name it is not acceptable that our consent is not sought by debating.

Modern so called democracies are only democracies by name in this case.

I might not the only one thinking that governments are losing their legitimacy. I am apt for being called under the flag and in case my government call me to defend their values/regim... I will not.

The social contract has been broken between modern governments and citizens. The social contract does not bind me anymore since the other party is not respecting the term of the contract.

Is there a reason why the US are negotiating separately a transpacific and transatlantic trade agreement ? The fact that, except for the US, no one knows what will go in both agreement until the end of the negotiation seems pretty odd.

The White House published the full thing as well, along with descriptions and summaries of each section:

https://medium.com/the-trans-pacific-partnership

How are people who are starting from zero on this supposed to understand it in 60 days? This disclosure only a little more than a transparency fig leaf.

Zip file download (with all annexes) seems to be broken. Chapters + annexes are available as dozens of individual files. Zip file mirror needed.

I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords

I wonder if there are any systems for defining these things in a more explorable format, because I don't particularly enjoy reading legalese.

assert> forbid(anyone-in(nz), sale(illegitimately-labelled-product("Bourbon Whiskey"))

query> prohibitions-for(anyone-in(nz))

Or something. Semi-logical legal code.

I see that they are retaining the paragraph that leads several countries to join Russia in burning and bulldozing food and other commodities, if and when trade mark infringed.

[ edit: this apparently does not get the annexes ]

For those who want to grep it ...

download ...

wget http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/trade-agreement/transpacif...

unzip ...

unzip TPP_All-Chapters.zip

convert to text ...

pdftotext "0. Preamble.pdf" 0.Preamble.txt

pdftotext "1. Initial Provisions and General Definitions Chapter.pdf" 1.InitialProvisionsandGeneralDefinitionsChapter.txt

pdftotext "2. National Treatment and Market Access for Goods Chapter.pdf" 2.NationalTreatmentandMarketAccessforGoodsChapter.txt

pdftotext "3. Rules of Origin and Origin Procedures Chapter.pdf" 3.RulesofOriginandOriginProceduresChapter.txt

pdftotext "4. Textiles and Apparel Chapter.pdf" 4.TextilesandApparelChapter.txt

pdftotext "5. Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation Chapter.pdf" 5.CustomsAdministrationandTradeFacilitationChapter.txt

pdftotext "6. Trade Remedies Chapter.pdf" 6.TradeRemediesChapter.txt

pdftotext "7. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Chapter.pdf" 7.SanitaryandPhytosanitaryMeasuresChapter.txt

pdftotext "8. Technical Barriers to Trade Chapter.pdf" 8.TechnicalBarrierstoTradeChapter.txt

pdftotext "9. Investment Chapter.pdf" 9.InvestmentChapter.txt

pdftotext "10. Cross-Border Trade in Services Chapter.pdf" 10.Cross-BorderTradeinServicesChapter.txt

pdftotext "11. Financial Services Chapter.pdf" 11.FinancialServicesChapter.txt

pdftotext "12. Temporary Entry for Business Persons Chapter.pdf" 12.TemporaryEntryforBusinessPersonsChapter.txt

pdftotext "13. Telecommunications Chapter.pdf" 13.TelecommunicationsChapter.txt

pdftotext "14. Electronic Commerce Chapter.pdf" 14.ElectronicCommerceChapter.txt

pdftotext "15. Government Procurement Chapter.pdf" 15.GovernmentProcurementChapter.txt

pdftotext "16. Competition Policy Chapter.pdf" 16.CompetitionPolicyChapter.txt

pdftotext "17. State-Owned Enterprises and Designated Monopolies Chapter.pdf" 17.State-OwnedEnterprisesandDesignatedMonopoliesChapter.txt

pdftotext "18. Intellectual Property Chapter.pdf" 18.IntellectualPropertyChapter.txt

pdftotext "19. Labour Chapter.pdf" 19.LabourChapter.txt

pdftotext "20. Environment Chapter.pdf" 20.EnvironmentChapter.txt

pdftotext "21. Cooperation and Capacity Building Chapter.pdf" 21.CooperationandCapacityBuildingChapter.txt

pdftotext "22. Competitiveness and Business Facilitation Chapter.pdf" 22.CompetitivenessandBusinessFacilitationChapter.txt

pdftotext "23. Development Chapter.pdf" 23.DevelopmentChapter.txt

pdftotext "24. Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Chapter.pdf" 24.SmallandMedium-SizedEnterprisesChapter.txt

pdftotext "25. Regulatory Coherence Chapter.pdf" 25.RegulatoryCoherenceChapter.txt

pdftotext "26. Transparency and Anti-Corruption Chapter.pdf" 26.TransparencyandAnti-CorruptionChapter.txt

pdftotext "27. Administrative and Institutional Provisions Chapter.pdf" 27.AdministrativeandInstitutionalProvisionsChapter.txt

pdftotext "28. Dispute Settlement Chapter.pdf" 28.DisputeSettlementChapter.txt

pdftotext "29. Exceptions Chapter.pdf" 29.ExceptionsChapter.txt

pdftotext "30. Final Provisions Chapter.pdf" 30.FinalProvisionsChapter.txt

Am I the only one who is constantly surprised that these treaties can be negotiated in secret?

Why is this not released to the public before it is signed by lawmakers?

Oh boy, they should have stripped metadata from those PDFs.

So, when exactly is the critical vote for this garbage?

You have to pass TPP to know what's in TPP.

Am I the only one who thought TPP stood for Twitch Plays Pokémon ? :(

Great start!

>Article 1.1: Establishment of a Free Trade Area The Parties to this Agreement, consistent with Article XXIV of GATT 1994 and Article V of GATS, hereby establish a free trade area in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement.

Begin with a bunch of undefined acronyms that apparently pull in tons of other shit not written down in this paper.

E: mmm, that delicious taste of downmods in the morning

Obviously, some economists like globalization and "levelling the playing field". However, it will probably be recognized as a fashion and fad soon enough. (How far do economists think ahead? 3 months or what?)

There's value in preserving local differences.

But that's not even getting into the details of these arrangements.