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

Mr. Martin Glass (Hong Kong, China)
C; D; E 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
95. The representative of Australia said that Bolivia's domestic law took advantage of the flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement to exclude patents and animals from patent protection. She agreed that these flexibilities allowed national implementation to reflect national policies on innovation and to take into account the circumstances of farmers and indigenous and local communities. It was appropriate to retain these flexibilities. It was positive to see Members utilising these flexibilities to meet the unique domestic setting. In relation to those who made reference to on going discussions in other rooms of the WTO, she said that the cause for this work went beyond the scope of the Council for TRIPS. The existing agenda items in the Council for TRIPS were adequately broad to provide for discussion of Members' concerns and views. She suggested maintaining and building on discussions under the three agenda items, which should include the full membership and have more transparency. Finally, she said that her delegation rejected the artificial parallelism as proposed in document TN/C/W/52.
IP/C/M/63