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

Mr. W. Armstrong (New Zealand)
United States of America
E Implementation of Articles 70.8 and 70.9
23. The representative of the United States wished to encourage Members to make notifications under Article 63.2 relating to the subject matter of Articles 70.8 and 70.9, if only to inform the Council that the patent law in their territories already extended to pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical products as such, as the Dominican Republic had done. However, if product patent protection was not yet available, the provisions establishing a "mailbox" system had to be notified. He wished to emphasise again that this obligation, on which agreement had been reached in the context of the Preparatory Committee for the WTO and which had been confirmed by the TRIPS Council, was not limited to Article 70.8 but naturally applied to the implementation of Article 70.9 as well. Most notifications made to date did not reveal whether or not exclusive marketing rights could be obtained as required by Article 70.9. Since the meeting of the Council of 22 February 1996, the United States had started consultations with Pakistan relating to Articles 70.8 and 70.9 in accordance with the procedures of the Dispute Settlement Understanding and might do so with India in the near future. Although his delegation was still analysing the situation in various countries, he already wished to inform the Council that Members that seemed to be non-compliant in this area included Guatemala, India, Kuwait, Madagascar, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Qatar, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. According to the information his delegation had, these Members had not established the necessary procedures for filing patent applications under Article 70.8 or exclusive marketing rights as required by Article 70.9.
IP/C/M/7