67. The Chairman said that the Council had partially overlapping mandates to work on three agenda items, namely the "Review of the provisions of Article 27.3(b)", "Relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity" and "Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Folklore". The respective mandates were based on paragraph 19 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration and the built-in agenda of the TRIPS Agreement, as well as paragraph 12(b) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration. Given the action under way in the context of the Trade Negotiations Committee on outstanding TRIPS implementation issues, he suggested that the Council's examination of these three matters not include consideration of outstanding implementation issues relating to them.
68. Since its meeting in February 2003, the Council had received three new communications. The first communication had been received from Switzerland expressing its views on these three agenda items (IP/C/W/400). The second communication had been received from the Permanent Mission of India on behalf of Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Peru, Thailand and Venezuela, which concerned the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the CBD and the protection of traditional knowledge (IP/C/W/403). The third communication had been received from the Permanent Mission of Morocco on behalf of the African Group, which suggested ways of taking forward the review of Article 27.3(b) (IP/C/W/404).
