1. The Chairman reminded Members that the Council had to find an expeditious solution to the problem stated in paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health ("the Declaration") and report to the General Council before the end of 2002. He said that it was his understanding that the general view of Members was that the Council should be in a position to make concrete recommendations to the General Council about how this matter should be dealt with by the end of this year. He recalled that, at the last TRIPS Council meeting, the Secretariat had circulated, in document IP/C/W/363, its Corrigendum and Addendum, a thematic compilation of the elements contained in the five written proposals and points made in the discussion at the Council's last meeting, as well as factual information on WTO procedures, practices and experiences with regard to each of the four legal techniques proposed. The Secretariat had now issued an update of document IP/C/W/363 as an informal document JOB(02)/102. It reflected, under each of the headings contained in the original document, first, the various proposals made and, then, the comments made at the informal meeting of 24-25 July 2002. In addition, the Council had recently obtained a non-paper from Switzerland in which Switzerland outlined its view on the key elements listed in document IP/C/W/363 according to the chronological order used in that document (JOB(02)/109).
2. The Chairman proposed to structure the discussion on paragraph 6 using the same format that had been used at the informal meeting in July, namely, to discuss the five principal subjects listed in IP/C/W/363, and repeated in JOB(02)/102, to see if there had been any developments in delegations' thinking on any of these subjects. He reminded Members that these five subjects were: first, scope and coverage (item I.A.); second, conditions (item I.B.); third, legal mechanisms (item I.C.); fourth, measures to facilitate production in countries with presently insufficient manufacturing capacity (item II); and fifth, other proposals (item III). In accordance with the suggestion made at the informal meeting in July, the issue of legal mechanisms would be taken up before the issue of conditions.
