TWN Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues (Nov08/01)
4 Nov 2008
Third World Network

Please find below news report on the TRIPS Council meeting held last week. It was first produced in SUNS and is reproduced here with permission.

Best Regards
Sangeeta Shashikant
email: ssangeeta@myjaring.net

Positions unchanged on GI register/extension, TRIPS disclosure
SUNS #6579 Thursday 30 October 2008

Geneva, 29 Oct (Kanaga Raja) -- The three TRIPS issues of GI register for wines and spirits, proposals to start negotiations on extension of GI to other products (than wines and spirits) and on requiring patent applicants to disclose the origin of genetic material or traditional knowledge used in their inventions featured at a formal meeting of the WTO TRIPS Council Tuesday, with positions among members remaining unchanged.

According to trade officials, many members, but not all, continued to press for all three issues to be negotiated together. But some, such as the Philippines, opposed "parallelism" with respect to negotiations between the patent "disclosure" proposal and any other intellectual property subject.

A number of countries continued to counter that discussions have not developed enough to justify moving to full-blown negotiations.

At the start of the meeting, Ambassador Denis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago was elected the new TRIPS Council Chair. He replaced Ambassador Gail Marie Mathurin, who has returned to Jamaica.

A formal meeting of the Special Session of the TRIPS Council took place Wednesday, where Ambassador Trevor Clarke of Barbados was elected as the new Chair. The previous Chair, Ambassador Manzoor Ahmad of Pakistan, now heads the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva.

The formal meeting of the Special Session debated whether the negotiations on the GI multilateral register for wines and spirits should be conducted with two other issues.

According to trade officials, despite their differences on the issues, members agreed that they want to intensify their efforts on the multilateral register and the Chair concluded that he will hold consultations and other meetings in a number of formats for that purpose. The Chair added that while he heard both sides of the argument on linking the subjects, he has to stick to his present mandate so long as there is no decision to change the mandate, a decision that would have to be taken "elsewhere" (see below).

According to trade officials, at the regular TRIPS Council meeting Tuesday, a number of developing countries argued that with over 80 members backing the TRIPS "disclosure" proposal, and 110 backing the "parallel" treatment of all three issues - GI register, GI extension and TRIPS disclosure – enough momentum has been built up to justify negotiations as part of the Doha Round.

Speakers taking this line included the "disclosure group" (Cote D'Ivoire speaking), the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group (Mauritius speaking), India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Least Developed Countries (Lesotho speaking), Jamaica, Peru, Colombia, Pakistan, China, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt, Cuba and Angola.

According to trade officials, the Philippines and South Africa reiterated their support for TRIPS "disclosure" but not for linking this to geographical indications. Bolivia said that its total opposition to patenting any life form is enshrined in its forthcoming new constitution.

Switzerland and the EU said that the three issues should be negotiated in order to strike a suitable balance in the Doha Round as a whole.

According to trade officials, Japan, the US, New Zealand, Korea, Canada, Australia and Argentina reiterated that the discussion is not ready to be turned into a negotiation.

They argued that altering patent requirements would not help meet the objective of preventing bio-piracy - neither through disclosing prior informed consent and benefit sharing for using genetic material and traditional knowledge, nor by preventing bad patenting.

With respect to China's transitional review, trade officials said that Canada, the EU, Japan and the US praised China for its continuing efforts to beef up its intellectual property regime, and asked over 80 questions about some of the details. They also expressed concern about what they saw as insufficient enforcement to prevent piracy and counterfeiting.

China clarified many of the points and asked members to give it time to tighten enforcement further.

According to trade officials, the questions posed were broadly about copyright and the distribution of royalties, trademark registration, patents and confidential information, enforcement and other issues.

The US and EU said that the vast majority of counterfeit products seized at their borders come from China (85% of the value of seized products and rising, the US said; over 60% of all articles in 2007 but less than in 2006, the EU said).

The US, EU and Japan also said that counterfeit trade is becoming more complex, including over the Internet.

Canada, which is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2010, asked China to share its experience in protecting intellectual property related to this year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.

According to trade officials, China provided a written paper (IP/CW/525) and replied orally at some length.

China said that enforcement and dealing with piracy and counterfeiting are global problems, and Internet piracy is worse in Western countries. It urged members to take into account China's low per capita income, level of development and comparatively recent introduction to intellectual property protection.

China underscored that intellectual property protection is important for its own creators and referred to the piracy of Chinese films in Western countries.

On TRIPS and public health, Canada recently informed WTO members about the first shipment of a generic medicine produced in Canada under compulsory licence and exported to Rwanda to treat HIV/AIDS - the first ever shipment under new WTO rules agreed in August 2003.

Ecuador said that the length of time taken shows that Canada's procedures are too complicated and urged members to use simpler procedures.

According to trade officials, India and China sought more information on members' implementing legislation, through a proposed Secretariat document compiling the legislation and information sessions.

Switzerland and the EU said that their legislation is in place, so eligible importing countries can seek supplies under the new rules from them as well.

Switzerland also observed that only a few WTO members have accepted the amendment to the TRIPS Agreement agreed in 2005, leaving just over a year for the number of accepting members to reach the two thirds requirement.

The meeting also discussed a number of issues on technical cooperation and technology transfer.

According to trade officials, the least developed countries and donor developed countries said that they had benefitted from a workshop held the previous day, on how developed countries report on the incentives they provide to the private sector and other organizations for technology transfer to the least developed countries.

The least developed countries said that they understood the reports better and described what would be needed to make the reports more informative and more uniform.

The developed countries said that they had learnt how to improve their reporting, but several stressed that providing incentives is not enough to ensure technology transfer. The receiving countries' investment and intellectual property framework and their ability to absorb the technology is also important, the donors said.

According to trade officials, Sierra Leone and Uganda have identified their priority needs for technical and financial assistance. Sierra Leone has translated its needs assessment into a project (IP/C/W/523), which it will discuss with donors on 29 October.

The US and EU said that they have found this approach useful for working with the two applicants, and the EU said that it has already agreed funding for Uganda.

According to trade officials, Brazil (IP/C/W/513), supported by Argentina, Ecuador and Egypt, said that when members consider technical cooperation in the TRIPS Council, they should take into account the cluster of 14 proposals on the subject of WIPO's Committee on Development and Intellectual Property.

The US and Canada said that they disagreed with transferring those issues to the WTO, particularly when some of them deal specifically with WIPO's activities, but that members could individually bear them in mind.

Meanwhile, at the formal meeting of the Special Session of the TRIPS Council Wednesday, countries sponsoring document TN/C/W/52, which calls for the negotiations on the multilateral register to be formally expanded to cover GI extension and TRIPS disclosure ("parallelism") argued that the dynamic has changed since the document was prepared with 110 members out of 153 supporting it, and with the experience of three issues being part of a single consultation in July conducted by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Store and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy.

According to trade officials, they also described the document as a compromise struck after difficult bargaining among the supporters, and the EU said it also represents some major concessions compared to the EU's original proposal for the multilateral register. They said that the three subjects should be negotiated together in these "special sessions".

Speaking in support of parallelism in this meeting were: the EU, Switzerland, India, Turkey, the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group (Mauritius speaking), China, Brazil, Nigeria, Cote D'Ivoire and Peru.

Those opposing "parallelism" include countries that support the "Joint Proposal" (TN/IP/W/10) for a voluntary system where notified geographical indications would be registered in a database. Those governments choosing to participate in the system would have to consult the database when taking decisions on protection in their own countries. Non-participating members would be "encouraged" but "not obliged" to consult the database.

According to trade officials, this group said the negotiations on the multilateral register still need more technical clarification. They noted that the EU said it had modified its proposal, but details had not been submitted in writing. This is needed so that it can be examined technically, the group said. And the group predicted that trying to negotiate the three subjects together would be disastrous.

In their view, the July consultations exposed how wide apart members are on the issues, and revealed that some supporters of parallelism are unclear about what it means, for example, whether the "extension" would mean also expanding the register beyond wines and spirits.

According to trade officials, speaking against "parallelism" in this meeting were: the US, Chile, Australia, Canada, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, New Zealand, Singapore, Korea, and Argentina. +