Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Alfredo Suescum (Panama)
World Trade Organization
15 INFORMATION ON RELEVANT DEVELOPMENTS ELSEWHERE IN THE WTO
516. Many thanks for giving the Secretariat an opportunity to provide a further update of IPR-related issues as they have come up in the most recent Trade Policy Reviews. 517. Since the meeting in November, the Trade Policy Reviews of Guatemala, Solomon Islands, the United States and Sierra Leone have taken place. I am pleased to report that developed country, as well as developing country and LDC Members have substantively contributed to the discussions on TRIPS-related issues during these reviews. 518. In particular, Members continued to engage in a constructive exchange views on a wide range of trade-related IP issues, including: copyrights and related rights; royalty fees for satellite transmissions; statutory copyright licences; trademarks; geographical indications; plant variety protection; patent quality; preferential patent fees; benefit sharing agreements; data exclusivity; marketing approval for new drugs; protection of trade secrets; enforcement measures, online and at the border; adjudication procedures; judicial review of administrative decisions; and the operation of Articles 66.2 and 67 of the TRIPS Agreement. Members also touched upon the ratification of WIPO Treaties including the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled; Beijing Treaty on Audio-visual Performances; and the Trademark Law Treaty; the implementation of national IP strategies, as well as on Technology and Innovation Support Centres.
The Council took note of the statement made.
79. The Chairman recalled that this item had been used in the past to provide information, for example, about new accessions to the WTO or the status of acceptances of the Protocol Amending the TRIPS Agreement. In this regard, he informed the Council that the delegation of Oman had deposited its instrument of acceptance with the WTO Director-General on 1 March 2017. It had thus become the 113th Member that had accepted the amended TRIPS Agreement. This should encourage other WTO Members that were yet to accept the TRIPS Amendment to do so by the end of this year when the current deadline for the acceptance of the Protocol Amending the TRIPS Agreement expired.

80. Under this item, the WTO Secretariat had also provided an overview of the wide range of IPR related issues that are regularly considered as part of individual Members' trade policy reviews at the Council's meetings in June and November 2016. He suggested that the Secretariat be given an opportunity to provide a further update regarding recent TPR reviews.

81. The representative of the Secretariat took the floor.

82. The Council took note of the statement made.

IP/C/M/85, IP/C/M/85/Add.1