13. The representative of Australia said that delegations should be aware that discussing technical issues would to some extent mask the fact that there remained other significant areas of disagreement, namely the legal effects of registrations and participation in the multilateral system. It would be difficult for his delegation not to have these two issues in the back of its mind since the type of system and the extent of burdens that it would impose would inevitably have an effect on the so-called "technical" issues. He reiterated his delegation's position in regard to the mandate for this negotiation: as was made clear in Article 23.4, the system must be voluntary and should not result in a change in the current balance of rights and obligations in the TRIPS Agreement. In other words, this negotiation was not about recalibrating or amending the TRIPS Agreement. This was fundamental to Australia's approach. His delegation was interested in hearing during the course of the present meeting whether the demandeurs were able to give any further clarity as to what precisely they wanted.
14. He further expressed his delegation's concerns that a number of delegations were not participating in the discussion. Recalling the usefulness of informal consultations between delegations at the September 2004 meeting, he said that it was important to continue to try and find as many opportunities as possible to engage all Members in the discussion since some proposals tabled would entail significant obligations and burdens on all Members.
15. On issues relating to the notification phase, he said that his delegation supported the statement made by the delegation of New Zealand. Notification would be an important part of the multilateral system, and it warranted careful thought, balanced with a pragmatic and focused consideration of the task at hand. The Special Session should not reinvent the wheel: notifications were after all an established part of the WTO practice, considering the wide range of agreements with notification requirements. This should be instrumental in how the Special Session approached the issue. In the voluntary and facilitory system envisaged by Article 23.4, Australia would be looking to minimize the burdens on Members in the notification process while at the same time making sure that there be an effective system in place. Sticking to best practices in the WTO was one way of doing this. Other issues also deserved careful attention such as languages and translation, and the format and length of a notification. This was the approach taken in the joint proposal, which set down a number of reasonable requirements for notification.
16. He further expressed support for the comments made by the delegation of New Zealand on the need for flexibility, for a cost effective system and for transparency. He said that the Special Session should think further about what was meant by "notification" as well as by "registration".
17. On the content of a notification, he said that the authors of the joint proposal had made some suggestions. For example, the notification should include elements such as a geographical indication for a wine or a spirit and the geographical area from which the geographical indication originated, i.e. a place in the territory of the notifying Member. The information should be in the language of the notifying Member, and if it were in characters other than Latin characters, a transliteration into Latin characters using the phonetics of the language in which the language of the notification was made should be provided.
18. Other suggestions were made to also include elements such as the date on which the geographical indication received protection in the notifying Member, any time limit or date of expiry for that protection, and international agreements under which the geographical indication was protected. In his delegation's view, it might not be necessary to include all these elements: some of them might be dealt with outside the notification process.
19. With regard to the body dealing with the processing of notifications, his delegation could see a possible role for the WTO Central Registry of Notifications ("CRN").
