On 26 January 2012, representatives of 22 EU countries signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), between the EU's member states and Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the US. However, the European Parliament has still to approve it before it enters into force. On 24 June 2011, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of ACTA (see Legal update, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Proposal for Council conclusion published in Official Journal) and the European Parliament's Trade Committee has been given responsibility for guiding the legislation through parliament. Before taking a final position, the European Parliament has said that it will meet experts, representatives of society and other concerned parties, to ensure all opinions and concerns are heard. ACTA's key objective is to create a legal framework with international standards that can enforce intellectual property (IP) laws against large-scale infringement as a means to further innovation, quality and creativity within knowledge-based economies. It includes provisions on civil, criminal, border and digital-environment enforcement measures, co-operation mechanisms among ACTA parties to assist in their enforcement efforts, and establishment of best practices for effective enforcement of IP rights. For a more detailed explanation of ACTA, see Legal update, European Commission publishes final ACTA text.

Source: European Parliament press release, 27 January 2012.