92. The Chairperson recalled that, at its last meeting, the Council had taken up its annual review of technical cooperation. Given that some information from Members and other intergovernmental organizations had only been made available a short time before the review, she offered Members a further opportunity to make comments on that material. Since that meeting, the Council had received additional information from the European Union and individual member States and agencies, namely Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Patent Office (document IP/C/W/539/Add.7). As regards intergovernmental organizations, the Council had received additional information from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) (documents IP/C/W/541/Add.3 and 4, respectively).
93. As regards notifications of contact points for technical cooperation on TRIPS, since the Council's meeting in October, updates to contact points notified earlier had been received from Switzerland and the European Union. These notifications had been circulated in a complete updated list of all contact points in document IP/N/7/Rev.3. Subsequent to the circulation of that document, a further update had been received from Canada, which would be distributed in due course in an addendum to that document.
94. She recalled that, at the Council's meeting in October, Brazil had introduced an addendum to its earlier communication on "Technical Cooperation and Capacity Building: 'Cluster' A of the Development Agenda" (document IP/C/W/513). Since this communication had been received just before the meeting, it had only been available as an advance copy, but had since then been circulated in document IP/C/W/513/Add.1.
95. As regards LDC needs assessments, she recalled that paragraph 2 of the TRIPS Council's 2005 decision on the "Extension of the Transition Period under Article 66.1 for Least-Developed Country Members" provided that "with a view to facilitating targeted technical and financial cooperation programmes, all the least-developed country Members will provide to the Council for TRIPS, preferably by the 1 January 2008, as much information as possible on their individual priority needs for technical and financial cooperation in order to assist them taking steps necessary to implement the TRIPS Agreement". The Council had just received such information from Bangladesh, available as an advance copy of document IP/C/W/546, and earlier from two other Members, namely Sierra Leone and Uganda.
96. As she had foreshadowed at the Council's last meeting, in response to a request from the LDC Group, the Secretariat had organized a workshop on LDC priority needs for technical and financial cooperation just after the Council's meeting in October. This technical level workshop had brought together delegates and other officials from LDC and developed country Members, and from the WTO and WIPO Secretariats. It had been designed to promote practical dialogue and coordination on the needs assessment process. As she had mentioned in October, depending on feedback and guidance received from the Members concerned, it was envisaged that the Secretariat would organize follow-up activities in the coming year.
