73. The Chairman said that, in its report (1996), the Council had agreed to initiate in 1997 preliminary work on issues relevant to the negotiations specified in Article 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement concerning the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines. It had also agreed that issues relevant to a notification and registration system for spirits would be part of this preliminary work (document IP/C/8, paragraph 34). He had held informal consultations on this matter, which had indicated broad support for initiating this preliminary work through an information-gathering activity. In the light of these consultations, he suggested the following:
-The Council would invite Members to submit information on any systems for the registration of geographical indications which they operated. The target date for these submissions would be end July 1997;
-The Council would consider this information at its meeting in September 1997 and would, at that time, also revert to the preparation by the Secretariat of an outline of a factual background note on existing international notification and registration systems for geographical indications;
-While this information-gathering activity might cover systems that were applicable to other product areas, the exclusive purpose would be to gather information that would be useful to the work that the Council had agreed to undertake concerning wines and also issues relevant to a notification and registration system for spirits, in particular what types of notification and registration systems already existed.
