Canada may have just all-but-passed a copyright-reform bill that’s been over a decade in the making, but more intellectual-property changes could be coming down the pike, for it and Mexico, thanks to the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership trade, etc. negotiations between the United States and a slew of Asia-Pacific countries. Canada and Mexico want to join. Too bad they wouldn’t have a say in what’s actually in the agreement; they’d have to accept it in its current form.

Canadian participation in the agreement isn’t a foregone conclusion (supply management is a sticking point). But it’s still worth asking what might these talks mean for the two countries, and how does it square with the North American Free Trade Agreement? Infojustice’s Carrie Ellen Sager provides us with a nifty checklist.

* Quick update: I’m not sure Ms. Sager’s assertion that Mexican law prohibits only the manufacture of circumvention devices is correct (her claim seems to come from the International Intellectual Property Alliance’s Special 301 submission, page 215). My understanding was that circumvention devices are prohibited only when they are related to the circumvention of computer programs:

Article 112: It shall be prohibited to import, manufacture, distribute and use apparatus, or render services, whose purpose is to remove the technical protection of computer programs, transmissions by electromagnetic waves and over telecommunication networks, and programs containing electronic elements as mentioned in the foregoing Article.

There seems to be a lot in there. Anyone want to clarify?