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

  Go back

1. Meeting date

2. Chairperson

H.E. Ambassador Dr. Walter Werner

3. Intervention by

Canada

4. Agenda item

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

5. Statement/summary of statement

167.   Canada would like to thank the Secretariat for organizing the thematic discussions and panels and Members for sharing their important insights on the implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement. Canada places great importance on the implementation of Article 66.2, and on the annual workshop as an opportunity to exchange national experiences and practices, particularly with a view to ensuring that our continued implementation of the TRIPS Article 66.2 commitment remains responsive to the needs and priorities of LDCs over time in enabling them to create a sound and viable technological base. 168.   In our experience, the clear identification and articulation of priority needs by LDCs is particularly important in ensuring that the outputs of Canada's tech transfer incentives are tailored to these objectives. Ensuring that our LDC partners have an opportunity to provide feedback on specific projects, as well as on their needs and priorities over time, will help provide that the incentives provided under our Article 66.2 commitment continue to enable LDCs to address new and emerging development challenges in creating a sound and viable technological base. We similarly benefit from hearing the experiences of other developed country Members, in sharing and identifying best practices and commonalities, with a view to better informing Members of how future incentives in the area of technology transfer might best respond to LDCs' evolving priorities and needs over time. 169.   In turn, these discussions can inform developed country Members in refining and tailoring the range of incentives provided to enterprises and institutions, in order to continue to meet the development needs of LDCs going forward. 170.   In this spirit, Canada would be pleased to discuss any aspect of its 2018 report which can be found in document IP/C/W/646/Add.4 with interested LDC Members and looks forward to further dialogue through the annual workshop and at TRIPS Council. We once again thank the Secretariat for convening the Workshop on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, and all Members for their constructive engagement on these important issues.

6. Documents referred to in intervention

7. Conclusion

8. Summary of the agenda item (if available)

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.

9. Document symbol and date of distribution

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