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

Ambassador C. Trevor Clarke (Barbados)
B NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF NOTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND SPIRITS
11. The representative of Australia said that the Chairman had brought a sense of integrity and wisdom to his complicated work at the WTO and particularly to the offices he had held in recent years. His delegation welcomed the report in which the Chair had sought to capture the essence of the negotiations thus far and had provided some views on the way forward. He particularly welcomed the Chairman's clarification and confirmation that the purpose of the negotiations was to facilitate and not to increase protection, and the confirmation of the principle of territoriality in intellectual property protection. Australia would continue to engage in the TRIPS Special Session on issues relevant to the register, in particular participation, legal effects and special and differential treatment. He underlined that the issue of generic terms would be of particular importance for achieving a conclusion and that ensuring the continued availability of generic terms was fundamental to preserving the balance of rights and obligation in the TRIPS Agreement. In response to the assertions made about parallelism, he said that his delegation's view was well known and he would therefore not go into detail in that regard. His delegation would continue to engage on the mandated negotiations in the TRIPS Special Session and address each of the three issues on their merits.
The Special Session took note of the statements made.
TN/IP/M/24