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

H.E. Ambassador Dr Pimchanok PITFIELD
4; 5; 6 REVIEW OF THE PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE 27.3(B); RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRIPS AGREEMENT AND THE CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY; PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND FOLKLORE

98.  Indonesia's position remains unchanged, and we would like to refer to our previous statements on these agenda item respectively. Although Article 27.3(b) excludes patentability for animal and plants, our delegation further stresses the need to review this article in order to prevent misappropriation and misuse of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Furthermore, this provision historically disadvantaged developing country Members and LDCs, particularly indigenous and traditional community, as the source of genetic resource and traditional knowledge that have not been provided with fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from such usage. 99.  Indonesia along with other likeminded Members, in this regard, has submitted a proposal - document TN/C/W/59 - on adding a mandatory disclosure requirement with a view to strengthen the effectiveness of Article 29 of the TRIPS Agreement. The proposal received broad support from developing countries. Moreover, there are more and more countries adopting disclosure requirement at the national level. 100.  In this context, Indonesia would like to reiterate our request in this Council as follows: 1. that the Secretariat of the CBD be invited to present on the Nagoya Protocol, and 2. that the WTO Secretariat provide an updated background paper on state of play on the TRIPS-CBD.

The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to these matters at its next meeting.
17. The Chair proposed to address these three agenda items together. She recalled that one tool for the review under item 4 was the information provided by Members in response to lists of questions on Article 27.3(b). She said that the latest Annual Report on Notifications and other Information Flows circulated by the Secretariat illustrated that responses to that checklist had been rather sparse recently. So far, only 28 Members had responded to the lists of questions on Article 27.3(b), with Saudi Arabia being the most recent Member to respond in 2021. The Chair thus encouraged Members to submit responses to these checklists, and to update their previous submissions if they were out of date.
18. The Chair noted that two long-standing procedural issues had been discussed extensively on the record at every regular meeting of the Council for almost ten years. The first was the suggestion for the Secretariat to update three factual notes on the Council's discussions on the TRIPS and CBD and related items; these notes were initially prepared in 2002 and last updated in 2006. The second was the request to invite the CBD Secretariat to brief the Council on the Nagoya Protocol to the CBD, initially proposed in October 2010.
19. The Chair noted that delegations' positions on these issues were well-known and had already been extensively recorded in the Council's minutes. She therefore suggested that delegations focus their interventions on suggestions on how to resolve the differences and on how make progress on substantive issues.
20. The representatives of India; Bangladesh; Indonesia; Peru; South Africa; China; Tanzania, on behalf of the African Group; Ecuador; the United States of America; Japan; Nigeria; Thailand; Korea, Republic of; Canada and Brazil took the floor.
21. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to these matters at its next meeting.
IP/C/M/108, IP/C/M/108/Add.1