263. The Chairman recalled that, at its last meeting, the Council had discussed how to organize the continuation of the review of the application of the provision of the Section on geographical indications under Article 24.2 of the TRIPS Agreement. The Council had urged Members that had not yet provided responses to the checklist of questions which was contained in document IP/C/13/Add.1 to do so before the present meeting. The Secretariat had issued airgram WTO/AIR/1756, dated 26 March 2002, which had reminded Council Members to provide this information. Since that meeting further responses had been received from Poland. The responses had been circulated in document IP/C/W/117/Add.23. The Council had now received responses to the checklist from 40 Members. Those responses were summarized in a Secretariat note in document IP/C/W/253. At the Council's meeting in March, some Members had indicated that they might make presentations on their responses at the present meeting. Furthermore, at the Council's informal meeting on 17 May, Australia had informed the Council of its intention to ask the Secretariat to carry out a survey compiling available information as to how Members had implemented additional protection of geographical indications for wines and spirits.
