10.1. The Chairman recalled that, at its meeting in February 2003, the Council had adopted a decision on the "Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement". Paragraph 1 of the Decision provided that developed country Members shall submit annually reports on actions taken or planned in pursuance of their commitments under Article 66.2. To this end, they were to provide new detailed reports every third year and, in the intervening years, provide updates to their most recent reports. These reports were to be submitted prior to the last Council meeting scheduled for the year in question.
10.2. The fourth set of detailed annual reports under the Decision had been presented to the Council's meeting in November 2012. At its meeting in June 2014, the Council had requested developed country Members to submit a second set of updates to these reports for the present meeting. The Secretariat had issued on 24 July an airgram (WTO/AIR/4336) to remind developed country Members of this request.
10.3. To date, the Council had received updates to the annual reports from the following developed country Members: Australia; Japan; New Zealand; Canada; Norway; Switzerland, as well as the United States. This documentation was circulated in document IP/C/W/602 and addenda. The report submitted by the European Union and individual member States, namely Austria; Belgium; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Ireland; Luxemburg; the Netherlands; Slovakia; Spain; Sweden and the United Kingdom, had been made available as a room document on documents online and would also be circulated as an addendum to document IP/C/W/602.
10.4. The Chairman recognized that some of the information had been received only very recently, and most of it was, so far, available only in its original language. Therefore, he suggested that Members make further comments on the information at the next TRIPS Council's meeting.
10.5. He said that, for the seventh year in a row, the Secretariat had organized, at the request by LDC Members, a workshop on transfer of technology under Article 66.2 back-to-back to with the Council's end-of-year meeting on 27 October 2014. It had again brought together LDC and developed country experts to discuss this matter at a very practical level, building on the earlier workshops. There had been again a constructive exchange of views which was useful to both LDC and developed country delegations.
10.6. The discussions had also covered the reporting format that could be used by developed country Members in order to make the information provided more accessible. He recalled that, at the tenth review, Haiti on behalf of the LDC Group requested that the Council adopt the proposed format for reports submitted by developed country Members under Article 66.2 contained in a communication submitted by Angola on behalf of the LDC Group prior to the ninth review and circulated in document IP/C/W/561. The Secretariat had informed the Council a number of times of its work to develop an information management tool for this purpose that would facilitate the submission, processing and circulation of information on available incentives. One thing that was being explored was how the substantive concerns could be reflected in any such new tools. This had been considered at the Workshop.
10.7. In order to record the questions posed to reporting developed country Members on the occasion of the previous Workshop held on 9 October 2013, a compilation of these questions had been circulated as a room document on documents online at the request of the LDC Group.
10.8. The representatives of Australia; the European Union; New Zealand; Nepal; the United States; Bangladesh on behalf of the LDC Group and Bangladesh took the floor.
10.9. The Chairman thanked the Secretariat for organizing once more the Workshop and the delegations concerned for their constructive contributions at the Workshop; and indicated that the Council would provide an opportunity, at the next meeting, for Members to make further comments on the information submitted for this meeting that they might not yet have been able to study.
10.10. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.
