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

Mr. Martin Glass (Hong Kong, China)
L LETTER FROM THE CHAIR OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL CONCERNING WAYS TO IMPROVE THE TIMELINESS AND COMPLETENESS OF NOTIFICATIONS AND OTHER INFORMATION FLOWS
224. The Chairman recalled that, at its past five meetings, the Council had had on its agenda the letter from the Chair of the General Council concerning ways to improve the timeliness and completeness of notifications and other information flows in the area of its responsibility. In order to facilitate the Council's consideration of this issue, the Secretariat had presented to the October 2009 meeting a factual background note IP/C/W/543 it had prepared at the Council's request that summarized the relevant procedures and provided information on the use of these procedures, as well as contained suggestions on how to improve the transparency and user-friendliness of the notification system. Furthermore, the Secretariat had orally reported on further developments in this area. Those delegations that had spoken on this issue had supported the suggestions contained in that note to improve the transparency of the system, and had encouraged the Secretariat to pursue this task. At its last meeting, the Council had agreed to revert to this agenda item at the present meeting so as to provide Members a further opportunity to share any comments they might have on the matter, and also to allow the Secretariat to inform the Council on any further enhancements to its services improving the transparency and user-friendliness of the notification system.
IP/C/M/65