30. The Chairperson recalled that, in order to carry out its decision to undertake preliminary work on issues relevant to the negotiations provided for in Article 23.4, the Council had agreed, at its meeting in February 1997, to an information gathering process on existing systems for the notification and registration of geographical indications. As a first step, some Members had submitted information on the national systems which they operated. While most of these contributions were already before the Council at its September meeting, a new one had been received since that meeting, namely from Costa Rica. These contributions had been distributed in documents IP/C/W/76 and addenda. In addition, the Council, at its last meeting, had requested the Secretariat to prepare a factual background note on existing international notification and registration systems for geographical indications relating to wines and spirits, according to an agreed outline, which was to be found in an annex to the minutes of that meeting. In response to this request, the Secretariat had circulated a note in document IP/C/W/85. Since this note had been circulated only recently and only in English, she suggested that the Council postpone discussion on it to its first meeting in 1998.
