318. Reverting to this item at its place in the agenda, the Chairperson recalled that the Council continued to have before it 15 outstanding requests for regular observer status from the 15 Organizations listed in document IP/C/W/52/Rev.9. He recalled an earlier suggestion by the Chairperson that the Council might consider, as a first step, accepting the requests from:
(i) Multilateral organizations which already had observer status elsewhere in the WTO, i.e. the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI); the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP); and
(ii) Organizations running regional industrial property offices, i.e. the African Regional Industrial Property Office (ARIPO) and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), as they were directly concerned with implementing the TRIPS Agreement.
