While IP has been a contentious topic in international governance for some time now, it became even more prominent in the wake of negotiations on ACTA. Many observers criticized a lack of transparency in the negotiation processes, regulatory capture of negotiators through powerful corporate interests and, in effect, harmful negotiating results for people throughout the world. While ACTA was rejected by the European Parliament and thus put on hold in 2012, other international trade negotiations – Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – remain ongoing, which also deal with copyrights, patents, trademarks etc. The proposed contribution maps these initiatives and compares the most important of their (similar and different) underlying dynamics. As IP initiatives can only be understood from a multilevel perspective, the contribution will take into account actors and institutions at national and international levels.
