20. The Chairman recalled that the Council, at its September meeting, had discussed the issue of technical cooperation and that, in preparation for that discussion, each developed country Member had been invited to update the information on its technical cooperation activities relevant to the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement. Similarly, intergovernmental organizations presently observers to the TRIPS Council had been invited to do the same. The resulting documentation concerning the technical cooperation activities of developed country Members had been circulated in documents IP/C/W/34 and Addenda 1 to 5, while the contributions of intergovernmental organizations had been distributed in documents IP/C/W/35 and Addenda 1 to 5. Information on the WTO Secretariat's technical cooperation activities in the TRIPS area had been circulated in document IP/C/W/36. Since that meeting, the Secretariat had received updated information on technical cooperation activities from Finland, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Norway (documents IP/C/W/34/Add.3/Suppl.1-4), as well as from UNCTAD (document IP/C/W/35/Add.6). Unfortunately there were still a number of developed country Members that had not yet submitted any information on their technical cooperation activities. Given the importance that the Council had attached to this issue in the light of the needs of developing countries for such assistance, he hoped that these Members would be able to provide such information soon.
21. The Chairman recalled that the Council had invited each developed country Member to notify a contact point for technical cooperation purposes relating to TRIPS at the same time as it would submit updated information on its technical cooperation activities. The contact points that had been notified before the September meeting had been compiled in document IP/N/7. Since that meeting, contact points had been notified by Denmark, Greece and Norway. Austria and Canada had notified minor changes to their earlier notifications. Document IP/N/7 would be updated in due course to incorporate this additional information. Unfortunately, there were still a number of developed country Members that had not yet notified their contact points. He hoped that these Members would notify their contact points in the near future.
