H.E. Ambassador Dr. Walter Werner

Switzerland

9   FOLLOW-UP TO THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL REVIEW UNDER PARAGRAPH 2 OF THE DECISION ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTICLE 66.2 OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT

147.   Switzerland was pleased to participate in this year's Workshop on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement and to learn about LDCs priority sectors for technology transfer. We thank the Secretariat for its organization and for leading the workshop in an efficient manner. 148.   It was particularly helpful to see some concrete examples of technology transfer that have effectively worked in practice. This serves developed country Members as an orientation when developing incentives measures and planning tailor made projects together with LDC partners. 149.   We believe that the presentations of the LDCs during the workshop should not only contain examples of past or current projects. We encourage LDCs to also present planned project outlines as concretely as possible. The presentation of Myanmar was very helpful in this regard to understand what is concretely needed. We encourage other LDCs to present similar concrete project outlines in the future. 150.   Switzerland remains committed to engaging in the Council's discussion on Article 66.2 and to further developing its incentive measures to enterprises and institutions in Switzerland for the purpose of promoting and encouraging technology transfer to LDCs.

28.   The Chair recalled that, at the previous meeting in November 2018, the Council had on its agenda the Sixteenth Annual Review under Paragraph 2 of the Decision on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement. At that meeting, delegations had briefly presented the reports submitted by developed country Members under Article 66.2(IP/C/W/646 and Addenda) as well as a proposal by the LDC Group entitled "Proposal on the Implementation of Article 66 of the TRIPS Agreement" (IP/C/W/640 and IP/RD/24). The Council had agreed that it would revert to the item at its next meeting to permit continued consideration of the submitted material.
29.   In order to give LDCs more time to absorb the information provided by developed countries in their reports, and also to ensure that those reports were available in the official languages of the WTO, the Article 66.2 Workshop, which would have usually been held in November 2018, had been postponed. The Workshop had taken place in the two days preceding the meeting of the Council. Some of the capital-based delegates, who had participated in that Workshop would participate in the discussions under this agenda item. He invited delegations to comment on the materials that had been submitted for the meeting that had taken place in November 2018 and to share their experiences from the Article 66.2 Workshop.
30.   The representatives of Chad, on behalf of the LDC Group, the Central African Republic, Senegal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vanuatu, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, the United States of America, Norway, New Zealand, the European Union, Canada and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) took the floor.

IP/C/M/91, IP/C/M/91/Add.1, IP/C/M/91/Corr.1