206. The representative of China said that information on action taken to address priority needs identified by LDCs should be essential components of future notifications from developed country Members of the Council. He welcomed the submissions from several developed country Members on their technical cooperation and capacity building activities, which would help to provide a better understanding of how they were fulfilling their obligations under the TRIPS Agreement. He recalled that Article 67 provided that "such cooperation shall include assistance in the preparation of laws and regulations on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights as well as on the prevention of their abuse". As to the objectives of technical cooperation and capacity building activities, such activities should not be limited to the implementation of TRIPS obligations, but also focus on prevention of IPR abuses and on the rights provided to developing countries, including how to make full use of the flexibilities contained in the Doha Ministerial Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health.
207. His understanding was that the reports on technical cooperation submitted for this and previous meetings should only contain factual and objective information on relevant activities, as said by the Chair at the Council's meeting in June 2007. Law harmonization and harmonization of examination practices should not be an objective as they would be against the principle of Article 1.1. In this regard, he made a number of points in connection with the parts dealing with the activities of the European Patent Office of an advance copy of the EC report which were not retained in the final version of that document.
