67. The representative of Australia said that her delegation preferred to see discussions proceed in an open-ended way as suggested in the Chairperson's first proposal. Australia was concerned that the other approach might move things away from the review of implementation that Article 27.3(b) mandated. She preferred to see Members tabling their own concerns in whatever way they saw fit, especially in regard to the way in which they were actually implementing the existing provisions. She noted that, whilst the mandate in Article 27.3(b) was limited, the discussions had already facilitated a useful and timely information exchange. However, the information gathered had concentrated on quite a small number of Members and now that many more were in the process of notifying their intellectual property laws under the Agreement, the information gathered should draw on a much wider range of Members' experiences rather than being dominated by the approaches taken by the first to implement Article 27.3(b) and notify the legislation in question to the Council. Australia, therefore, looked forward to a wider range of information on national approaches to this key provision. There was a widely felt need for clear practical information about the operation and effect of existing options for intellectual property rights systems in this area of technology, and Australia welcomed the opportunity this review provided to share this information.
68. The representative of Australia said that substantive negotiations on the existing TRIPS rules or amending the existing text would be untimely. There was no mandate in any case but, setting legal questions aside, she believed it would be premature and counter productive to rewrite the rules before there was any consideration of how the majority of WTO Members had chosen to implement them in their national systems. She said that claims of shortcomings should first be taken up with reference to the range of practical options illustrated in the notification and review of national systems. The minimal discussion that had taken place in the TRIPS Council so far had barely touched on this rich source of information and she felt that that should be given priority given the commonly felt need for early practical solutions. Finally, she was willing to share Australia's experience on the interaction of the existing intellectual property system with these broader issues, not because it wanted to suggest that its experience was applicable to other Members' situations, but because it attached priority to a cooperative and collaborative approach to finding practical solutions to common problems.
