195. The Chairman informed the Council that, as had been agreed during the June 2002 meeting, the Secretariat had now circulated the information contained in informal notes, JOB(02)59, 58 and 60 on the review of the provisions of Article 27.3(b), the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore, as working documents IP/C/W/369, IPC/W/368 and IPC/W/370, respectively. He recalled the Council's invitation to WIPO, UNCTAD, FAO, the World Bank, CGIAR, CBD, UNEP and UPOV, to provide updated information on their activities with respect to agenda items E, F and G. Since its meeting in June, the Council had received information from the World Bank (subsequently circulated in document IP/C/W/347/Add.4), in addition to the information from the FAO, the CBD, UNCTAD and UPOV that had been received already prior to the June meeting (documents IP/C/W/347 and addenda 1-3, respectively). Furthermore, he recalled that Members were urged at the March 2002 meeting to provide responses to the questionnaire on the implementation of Article 27.3(b) by June 2002. The Secretariat was also requested to update document IP/C/W/273 on the basis of any responses received from Members. To this effect the Secretariat had issued a reminder on 26 March 2002, as contained in airgram WTO/AIR/1756, to provide this information. Since then, the Secretariat had received additional responses from Estonia; Hong Kong, China; Lithuania and Thailand as contained in documents IP/C/W/125/Add.20, 22, 23 and 21, respectively, and a supplement from the Czech Republic, issued in IPC/W/125/Add.8/Suppl.1. The Secretariat would update the synoptic table in its summary note as requested by the Council in light of these new submissions. Further, the Chair informed the Council of the communication that had just been received from the EC and their member States on the review of Article 27.3(b), the relation between the TRIPS Agreement and the CBD, and the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore (subsequently circulated in document IP/C/W/383).
