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

Ambassador Dacio Castillo (Honduras)
Angola on behalf of Least-developed countries
I.ii Other matters
132. The representative of Angola, speaking on behalf of the LDC Group, recalled that the Council's 2005 decision on the extension of the transitional period for LDCs allowed these countries, during a period of seven and a half years, not to provide protection to trademarks, patents, copyright, industrial design, geographical indications and trade secrets, among others. The decision also requested LDC Members to provide information to the Council on their individual priority needs for technical and financial cooperation in order to implement the Agreement. He noted with concern that only six LDC Members had submitted their individual needs assessments and that there had not been any concrete steps forward to respond to them. Other LDCs, up to 32, were in the process of identifying their priority needs. He hoped that the Symposium would assist LDC Members to foster coordination of responses to the needs identified and to develop a dialogue process to assist the remaining LDCs to identify their individual priority needs. He also hoped that the Symposium would mobilize automatic funding to help other LDCs in the process of identifying their individual priority needs and also to develop a guidebook and materials for LDC Members to benefit from practical past experience. He also requested the Secretariat to ensure the participation of the capital-based experts. 133. As to the practical steps undertaken by the LDC Group to implement the WTO Ministerial Decision on the Transition Period for LDCs under Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement, he said that the Group was currently reflecting on developing a work programme based on individual priority needs identified for technical and financial assistance that would be submitted for the consideration of developed country partners and intergovernmental organizations at the Symposium and to the next Council's meeting, prior to the initiation of the negotiations on the appropriate time-period for an extension of the transition period.
IP/C/M/70