WASHINGTON – Dozens of public interest groups have signed a petition urging President Obama to make more transparent the negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, continuing this week in Korea.
 
That the agreement is being negotiated privately has been a common complaint, and the petition indicates many observers do not feel the steps the Obama administration has taken to provide more information on the agreement have been sufficient.
 
US officials have said the objective of the ACTA negotiations is to create a state-of-the art agreement that will help governments combat more effectively the proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods, which undermines legitimate trade and in some cases contributes to organized crime and exposes consumers to dangerous fake products.
 
The agreement aims to build on existing international IP rights rules, in particular the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and is intended to address enforcement issues where participants have identified an international legal framework does not exist or needs to be strengthened.
 
There has been some concern it could include measures that impose new restrictions on imports and exports of even legitimate goods, require additional documentation at entry, result in more importer audits, and give border officials greater authority to examine, seize and destroy goods thought to be infringing.
 
Trading partners taking part in the talks include Australia, Canada, the EU and its 27 member states, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland.
 
Earlier this year, USTR released a summary of the issues under negotiation, established a dedicated ACTA web page, and vowed to hold town hall meetings to engage with members of the public. More recently USTR broadened its consultations on ACTA to include domestic stakeholders representing a broad range of views and expertise on Internet and digital issues.
 
Nevertheless, the public interest group petition expressed a number of concerns regarding the conduct of the negotiations. For example, the groups found fault with USTR’s policy of “access by invitation and NDA,” which agency officials have said “fully addresses the legitimate demands for more transparency” and “is being considered as a model for the future.” Under this policy, the opportunity to see ACTA documents was offered to a large number of business interests, but only a few public interest or consumer groups, and not to academic experts or the public.
 
The petition asserted this approach “creates a small special class of citizens who have rights superior to the majority of the population” and “gives the government too much discretion in deciding who can monitor and criticize its operations.”
 
The petition also asked proposals for ACTA texts to be “shared with everyone” instead of being limited to government officials and “Washington, DC insiders.” It is “an insult to our intelligence,” the groups said, “to claim that the secrecy of the ACTA text has anything to do with national security concerns, as the term is commonly understood.”

JASPER, IN -- Kimball International reported net sales of $274.7 million and net income of $1.8 million for the period ended Sept. 30.

COLLEGE PARK, MD –The United States Air Force has named DfR Solutions to its Small Business Innovation Research program to study Physics of Failure-based reliability predictions of Pb-free solder.

BANNOCKBURN, IL -- An IPC committee yesterday took to task a California’s agency's proposal to regulate chemistries used in electronics manufacturing and other applications.

MYSLOWICE, POLAND -- EMS company PartnerTech will invest 6 million euros ($9 million) to open a production unit for enclosures and system integration here, the company said.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – A new PCB roadmap outlines the needs for US military contractors over the next few years.

The roadmap is intended to facilitate better communication between the PCB industry, OEMs designing and manufacturing military hardware, the US Department of Defense and the military electronics supply chain. It was developed with input from top military OEMs under the auspices of an IPC task force.

The task force, composed of North American manufacturers, developed the roadmap to assist the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division in identifying technologies, designs and materials that will be required to meet future DoD and OEM needs. Crane has been appointed by the DoD as its PCB Executive Agent.

The IPC Printed Board Defense Roadmap will be released a Dec. 9-10 IPC meeting in Washington, DC.

For more information, visit www.ipc.org/defense-roadmap.

MINNEAPOLIS – EMS provider Nortech Systems Inc. today reported third-quarter net sales of $18.7 million, down 41% year-over-year.

SAN JOSE – Sanmina-SCI today reported a fourth-quarter loss of $32.3 million, compared to a loss of $473.9 million in the same period in 2008.

OWEGO, NY – More than 75 attendees from 29 member companies descended upon Universal Instruments’ Advanced Process Lab last week for its annual Advanced Research in Electronics Assembly consortium.

Topics during the Oct. 28-29 event ranged from Pb-free solder microstructure and reliability to environmental stress screening procedures.

The opening session reviewed systematic results of thermal cycling of Pb-free soldered assemblies and discussed network analysis of this and previous thermal cycling data. Other topics included pad cratering research and new thermal interface materials, reliability testing of various TIMs, as well as a discussion on insights into Pb-free metallurgy. Also examined was the evolution of Pb-free solder microstructure.

The event included updates on edge and corner bonding and efforts to define a practical, safe screening test for the identification of inferior electrolytic nickel; i.e., NiAu coatings that may give “missing balls” or brittle failure of the intermetallic bond subsequent to reflow.

Other topics included flux dipping of flip chips, reballing, ENEPIG coatings, and an overview of all past consortium reports and how to effectively use them for reference. 

SEATTLE – DfR Solutions has established a office here to provide interaction with local consumer electronics OEMs, aerospace manufacturers, and system integrators.

Dr. Randy Kong will head the office. Kong has more than 18 years of experience in reliability risk analysis of product and technology development.

DfR Solutions provides quality, reliability, and durability solutions.

EL SEGUNDO, CA -- China’s gray-market cellphone shipments this year are set to grow to 145 million units, or nearly 13% of the size of the legitimate global cellphone business.

SAN JOSE -- SEMI has published three new standards aimed at facilitating identification of counterfeit IC chips.