195. The Chairman emphasized the importance of the final point made by the representative of the Secretariat, namely that it was not necessary for a Member to have taken any decision whether and, if so, how to implement the TRIPS Amendment at the time when it would deposit its instrument of acceptance. In essence, the acceptance only expressed the willingness of the Member to be bound to accept that other Members were entitled to use the mechanism. It was his understanding that some Members had postponed acceptance of the amendment because they had linked it to domestic implementing legislation. While there could be domestic reasons to do so, it was not necessary for the purposes of acceptance.
