Abstract
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being considered by the Taiwan government, but it still needs to be assessed at great length. This thesis uses the historical method to trace the history of the intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement, and shows how global standard in IPR enforcement shifts both horizontally and vertically. Chapter 2 will provide an overview of ACTA, by introducing the institutional background of the negotiations on ACTA and analyzing the final provisions thoroughly based on its April, October and November version official drafts. This thesis further uses the comparative method to describe the relationships between the ACTA and the existing legal frame-work, draws a comparison to the context of ACTA with Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, and points to the difference and its possible problems in Chapter 3. Besides, in Chapter 5 section2 uses the same usage to identify what we should amend in Taiwan’s intellectual property law if we want to accede to the ACTA. The thesis then discusses some sharp criticism of ACTA in Chapter 4, including the process for negotiations, the potential impact of this treaty, the shortcomings of the currently proposed context of ACTA, and the risks to the lawful trade of generic medicines by using the documentary analysis method. Chapter 5 section1 enumerates the signatories’ attitude and non-signatories’ position to date, in order to discover the trend of ACTA. Chapter 6 weighs the pros and cons carefully from various points above mentioned. Finally this thesis makes a conclusion whether Taiwan have to sign the ACTA.