Apparently, the US government has already indicated that it will not allow any form of weakening of intellectual property law for any reason whatsoever in this agreement. In fact, the USTR has directly said that it will only allow for “harmonizing” intellectual property regulations “strictly upwards,” meaning greater protectionism. Given the mounds of evidence suggesting that over protection via such laws is damaging to the economy, this is immensely troubling, and once again shows how the USTR is making policy by ignoring data. This is scary.

birdboy2000:

A lot of countries have already signed on.  Many of the worst provisions were removed in the negotiation process - text is publicly available.  Has NOT been submitted to US Senate for ratification, but is only (at least in the US) a nonbinding “executive agreement” - Europeans, however, can and should fight back.  Canada apparently passed it already, as did Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Morocco.