10. The Chairman said that, at its meeting in September 1996, the Council had concluded that this matter should be approached on the basis of a range of options between which Members could choose in making their notifications and that the Secretariat should prepare a format for one of these options, namely making a general statement that nationals of other WTO Members enjoyed national and MFN treatment and listing any exceptions to that principle. At its meeting of 11 15 November 1996, the Council had noted that the document in question prepared by the Secretariat (IP/C/W/48) had only just been distributed and agreed that it would take a decision on the proposed format at its meeting in February 1997.
11. The Chairman reported that he had taken up this issue with Members in informal consultations prior to this meeting. As a result of comments made by delegations during those consultations, the Secretariat had revised the Annex to its note containing the draft format (document IP/C/W/48/Rev.1). On the basis of the revised note, further informal consultations had been held and in the light of those consultations he proposed three changes to the Annex to the note containing the proposed draft format:
-at the end of the second paragraph on page 3 of the document, after the word "option", a comma should be introduced and the following words added: "without adding to or subtracting from the rights and obligations of Members under the Agreement";
-under item 1 of the format, dealing with national treatment, the last four lines of the text under (a) should be deleted, i.e. from "Do the intellectual property laws and regulations ..." down to "relevant provisions";
-item 2 of the format on most-favoured-nation treatment should be changed in the same way as proposed for item 1.
12. In submitting the amended format to the Council, the Chairman said, first, that it was, as it stated, intended to be no more than a practical aid to assist Members to avail themselves of the option to which it related. As now clearly stated in the text, it could not add to or subtract from rights and obligations of Members under the Agreement. Second, the purpose of identifying a range of options and, in particular, the general statement approach contained in the second option was to find as lightweight a way as possible of Members making notifications, while at the same time providing the transparency required under Article 63.2 in order to assist the Council in its review of the operation of the Agreement. Third, it was clear that many delegations were waiting for the outcome of the discussion on this point before making their notifications.
