In more detail
The Parties to the RCEP Agreement are the 10 ASEAN member states (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand.
The RCEP Agreement is the world's largest free trade agreement and covers a market of 2.2 billion people with a combined GDP of USD 26.2 trillion (approximately 30% of the world's population and global GDP).
The IP chapter features provisions that seek to harmonize protections for the standard suite of IP rights. It provides that each Party shall ratify or accede to several multilateral IP agreements, which include:
- the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (i.e., treaty relating to copyright protection);
- the Patent Cooperation Treaty (i.e.. treaty relating to patent protection); and
- the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (i.e., treaty relating to trademark protection).
The IP chapter also includes general provisions on national treatment, where each Party shall accord to the nationals of other Parties at least the same treatment that it accords to its own nationals with regards to the protection of IP (subject to certain exceptions).
In particular, there is an emphasis on the protection and enforcement of IP rights in the digital environment:
- Registration and accessibility: There are provisions seeking to streamline and align the procedures for establishing IP rights through the electronic filing of applications, and making available the relevant information online.
- Protection: Parties are required to implement protective measures against the circumvention of effective technological measures used by IP rights owners to protect their work. Parties are to also protect electronic rights management information (RMI) (i.e., such information is generally used by authors of digital works to identify their works and/or to provide information about the copyrighted work).
- Enforcement: The IP chapter expressly confirms that enforcement procedures with respect to the infringement of copyright or related rights and trademarks also apply in the digital environment. Additionally, Parties are to provide effective legal remedies against any circumvention of the protective measures used by IP rights owners to protect their work and against those who remove/alter electronic RMI.
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