The upcoming NAFTA negotiations are an opportunity for Canada to better protect its national interests around intellectual property.
Nearly a quarter-century ago, the United States, Canada and Mexico concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), implemented in 1994, and it included the first intellectual property (IP) chapter in an international trade agreement, chapter 17. This chapter was negotiated against the backdrop of negotiation of the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), which has served as the backbone for global intellectual property standards for over two decades.
Since NAFTA and TRIPS, the United States has worked to commit its trading partners to expand their IP protection beyond the TRIPS requirements. The US achieved this through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), committing Canada and other TPP members to abide by numerous intellectual property treaties, codify minimum pharmaceutical IP protection standards, and increase copyright terms and the scope of protection. That was, until President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the TPP, just a week after his inauguration.
Now, Canada, the US and Mexico will negotiate over updates to the NAFTA IP chapter. A critical question will be whether Canada's negotiators will spend their time playing defence against US demands, or whether they can summon some offence of their own by making demands designed to promote Canadian interests.
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