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

H.E. Ambassador Dr Walter Werner
European Union
10 TECHNICAL COOPERATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING
172.   Intellectual property rights play a crucial role in catalysing innovation and creativity, promoting economic growth and development, creating jobs, improving the quality and enjoyment of our lives, and combatting the manifold challenges we face as individuals, as nations and as a global community. 173.   The societal value of IP in the New Economy becomes obvious in a large number of sectors, and we will see this documented, once all the Members' interventions of today are uploaded in the e-TRIPS database. The EU would like to highlight two of them in its intervention today: Health Care and Transport. 174.   The recent report on the State of Health in the EU (State of Health in the EU "Companion Report 2017) concluded that only by fundamentally rethinking our health and care systems can we ensure that they remain fit-for-purpose. This means systems which aim to continue to promote health, prevent disease and provide patient-centred care that meets citizens' needs will have to adapt in a digitalised world. As in many parts of the world, health and care systems in Europe require reforms and innovative solutions to become more resilient, accessible and effective in providing quality care to European citizens. 175.   Europe's health and care systems, like in many other regions of the world, face challenges. These are ageing, multi-morbidity, health workforce shortages, and the rising burden of preventable non-communicable diseases caused by risk factors such as tobacco, alcohol, and obesity, and other diseases including neuro-degenerative and rare diseases. We are also seeing a growing threat from infectious diseases due to increased resistance to antibiotics and new or reemerging pathogens. Without innovative solutions, which are often incentivised by properly functioning IP systems, we will not be able to face the challenges of tomorrow. 176.   Digital solutions for health and care can increase the wellbeing of millions of citizens and radically change the way health and care services are delivered to patients, if designed purposefully and implemented in an effective way. Digitisation can support the continuity of care across borders, an important aspect for those who spend time abroad or to bring health services to places of the world where due to local factors such services are unavailable now. Digitisation can also help to promote health and prevent disease, including in the work place. It can support the reform of health systems and their transition to new care models, centred on people's needs and enable a shift from hospital-centred systems to more community-based and integrated care structures. The digitisation and a shift from hospital-centred systems will also increase the access of developing countries to high quality health services that were out of reach before. 177.   The EU is supporting the development of various approaches in high performance computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence, which can help design and test new healthcare products, provide faster diagnosis and better treatments. But succeeding in these endeavours depends on the availability of new and innovative technologies that ultimately will have to be developed by private health care industries which depend on their ability to retrieve a return on their investment. Without functioning IP systems, this paradigm shift will not happen or the benefits will only be fully exploitable in those places that properly protect IP. 178.   Health and care authorities across Europe face common challenges, which can be best addressed jointly. To this end, the Commission has been working with the EU Member States, regional authorities and stakeholders to tap into the potential of innovative solutions, such as digital technologies and data analytics, and in doing so assist EU Member States in pursuing the reforms of their health and care systems. The EU provides its support through funding and actions that promote policy cooperation and exchange of good practice and by ensuring appropriate legal certainty with regards to protecting the relevant IP rights related to the inventions and creations in those sectors. EU funding supports research and innovation in digital health and care solutions, notably through the Horizon 2020 programme. It also supports the building of infrastructure for cross-border exchange of patient summaries and electronic prescriptions, with funding from the Connecting Europe Facility programme. 179.   Cooperation structures have also been developed; for example, the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, the Active and Assisted Living Joint Programme, and public-private partnerships such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative and the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership. Regional and national smart specialisation and innovation strategies also play a central role in the development of stronger regional ecosystems around the healthcare and innovation domain. Since 2004, two eHealth Action Plans have provided a framework for policy action for the Member States and the Commission, and the eHealth Stakeholders Group has played an important role. 180.   The second sector we would like to highlight where the new digital economy will dramatically alter our current lives is transport. Electricity as an energy vector for vehicle propulsion offers the possibility to substitute oil with a wide diversity of primary energy sources. This could ensure security of energy supply and a broad use of renewable and carbon-free energy sources in the transport sector which in turn can help the implementation of the European Union targets on CO2 emissions reduction. Without the incentives of IP protection, the dramatically high amounts of investment needed to change our current transport technology based on combustion engines will not take place. 181.   Electric vehicle 'tank-to-wheels' efficiency is a factor of about 3 higher than internal combustion engine vehicles. Electric vehicles emit no tailpipe CO2 and other pollutants such as NOx, NMHC and PM at the point of use. Electric vehicles provide quiet and smooth operation and consequently create less noise and vibration. 182.   Electrification of transport (electromobility) is a priority in the Community Research Programme. It also figures prominently in the European Economic Recovery Plan presented in November 2008, within the framework of the Green Car Initiative. 183.   The European Commission will support a Europe-wide electromobility initiative, Green eMotion, worth €41.8 million, in partnership with forty-two partners from industry, utilities, electric car manufacturers, municipalities, universities and technology and research institutions. The aim of the initiative is to exchange and develop know-how and experience in selected regions within Europe as well as facilitate the market roll-out of electric vehicles in Europe. The Commission will make €24.2 million available to finance part of the initiative's activities. 184.   The development and large-scale deployment of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) provides a unique opportunity to make our mobility system safer, cleaner, more efficient and more user-friendly. 185.   The needed innovative technology for the upcoming paradigm shift in the transport sector will never available without properly functioning IP systems, IP systems that allow innovators to reap the benefits of their massive R&D investments, which dwarf any public money that even the EU or other developed regions will be able to make available.
33.   The Chair said the TRIPS Council had regularly conducted annual reviews of technical cooperation and capacity building activities at its end of the year meeting, based on reports submitted by developed country Members, international organizations and the WTO Secretariat. In line with past practice, he suggested the following approach:
a. The next review should take place at the meeting of the TRIPS Council, scheduled for 89 November 2018;

b. Developed country Members were invited to submit information on their activities, pursuant to Article 67 of the TRIPS Agreement. Other Members who also engage in technical cooperation were, of course, encouraged to share information if they so wished;

c. Intergovernmental organizations with observer status in the TRIPS Council, as well as the WTO Secretariat, were invited to report on their relevant activities; and

d. The deadline to submit written information would be set on 12 October 2018, i.e. four weeks prior to the TRIPS Council meeting, in order to allow timely circulation before the meeting.
34.   The Council so agreed.
IP/C/M/89, IP/C/M/89/Add.1