Morocco – Free Trade Agreement

Morocco and the United States entered a bilateral free trade agreement on January 1, 2006. Under the agreement, more than 95 percent of tariffs in consumer and industrial products have been eliminated, with the remaining tariffs scheduled to be eliminated within the next nine years. The agreement provides for the following improvements in intellectual property rights:

Patents & Trade Secrets:

Patent terms can be adjusted to compensate for unreasonable delays in granting the original patent, consistent with U.S. practice.

Trademarks:

• The Agreement requires each government to maintain a system to resolve disputes involving trademarks used in Internet domain names, which is important to prevent “cyber-squatting” with respect to high-value domain names.

• The Agreement applies the principle of “first-in-time, first-in right” to trademarks and geographical indications, so that the first person who acquires a right to a trademark or geographical indication is the person who has the right to use it.

• Each government will be required to establish transparent procedures for the registration of trademarks, including geographical indications, and to develop an on-line system for the registration and maintenance of trademarks, as well as a searchable database.

Copyrights:

• The Agreement ensures that authors, composers and other copyright owners have the exclusive right to make their works available online. The Agreement also ensures that copyright owners have rights over temporary copies of their works on computers, which is important in protecting music, videos, software and text from widespread unauthorized sharing via the Internet.

• Each government commits to protect copyright works, including phonograms, for extended terms (e.g., life of the author plus seventy years), consistent with U.S. standards and international trends.

• The Agreement includes strong anti-circumvention provisions, requiring each government to prohibit tampering with technologies (like embedded codes on discs) that are designed to prevent piracy and unauthorized distribution over the Internet.

• Each government commits to using only legitimate computer software, thus setting a positive example for private users.

• The Agreement requires protection for encrypted program-carrying satellite signals (including the signal itself and the programming), to prevent piracy of satellite television programming.

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have limited liability reflecting the balance struck in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act between legitimate ISP activity and the infringement of copyrights.