458.   I thank the distinguished delegate of South Africa for introducing its submission IP/C/W/651. Competition law opens a broad and challenging field. To a large extent, this field is outside of the responsibility of the TRIPS Council. 459.   The goal of the IP system is to grant a time limited exclusive right for the use of intellectual property to its owner. The IP system addresses and remedies an economic market failure to ensure sufficient incentive for investment into and for the promotion of innovation and dissemination of innovative technology. 460.   An IP right may provide one of many possible backgrounds on which anti-competitive behaviour or an abuse of market power may occur. Competition and anti-trust law are, however, concerned with that anti-competitive behaviour as such - and not with the underlying IPR. 461.   It is, therefore, misleading, in our view, to refer to competition law as a TRIPS flexibility. Competition law is not to make inroads or provide exceptions to IPR or to their protection as stipulated in the TRIPS Agreement. 462.   There is no direct or necessary link between IP and price either, be it in the pharmaceutical or any other sector. A patent does not grant the right to demand a specific price, not to mention excessive ones. This is illustrated by the fact that excessive pricing, whether in the pharmaceutical or other sectors, may occur regardless of whether respective products are patent protected or not. It's practices such as collusive pricing or abusive clauses in licensing agreement that are the subjectmatter of examination by competition law - and not IPRs. 463.   How competition law shall address such anti-competitive behaviour is, in this delegation's view, outside the purview of the TRIPS Council and not its field of competence.