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

Ambassador C. Trevor Clarke (Barbados)
United States of America
B.ii Meeting of 28 October 2009, p.m.
147. The representative of the United States expressed concerns about the Chair's idea of "shared responsibility". Firstly, would this mean that there would be some type of discussion occurring within or outside the context of the register? Secondly, it was unclear to her delegation what the Chair had in mind when he mentioned at the 23 October meeting that the notifying country certainly had information and facts which presumably could help to justify the position in respect of the notification regarding genericness. Did that mean that facts about genericness should be placed on the register before the registration? If that were the case, her delegation would have concerns. 148. On the summary point that "Relevant facts exist in both the consulting country and notifying country, and they should be treated equally", her delegation was of the view that there was no convergence on that point and there should not be any attempt to describe what weight should be given to the relevant facts in the consulting country, but only state that they should not be treated differently. She further suggested that the first four points be placed under the Chair's second question.
The Special Session took note of the statements made.
TN/IP/M/23