EU, Switzerland and Mexico will not sign ACTA yet

The European Union will not sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) this Saturday, despite an earlier statement by the Japanese government this week. Japan announced that all parties in the ACTA negotiations will congregate at the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday and that the countries that have "completed the relevant domestic processes" would sign the agreement.

However, the EU is not ready to sign the treaty according to a spokesperson for the European Commission. The EU has not yet completed its domestic procedure, which means a nominated signatory of the agreement still has to be assigned, then the treaty should be translated into all the EU languages, and finally the ACTA has to be approved by the European Parliament. Neither Mexico nor Switzerland will sign the agreement just yet, because they did not conclude their domestic proceedings either.  

ACTA is an international trade agreement between Australia, Canada, the European Union and its Member States, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. The scope of ACTA includes combating counterfeit products such as clothing and medicine and illegal copying of movies, music, software and games. The goal of the treaty is to set up international standards to protect intellectual property.

Mexico, Switzerland and the EU now have until May 1st, 2013 to sign the agreement.

Read more about ACTA FuturofCopyright.com:

-    Mexico against controversial ACTA

-    ACTA agreement violates EU law

You can read the statement of the Japanse Ministry of Foreign Affairs here.

Reference: Out-Law.com