1. The Chairman said that, since its meeting in October 2010, the Council had received a number of supplements and updates to earlier notifications of laws and regulations notified under Article 63.2 of the Agreement:
• China had notified its revised Patent Law, which inter alia implemented the WTO Decision on the "Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health", providing the legal basis for China to act as an exporting Member, as well as an importing Member, where a national emergency or any extraordinary state of affairs occurred, or public interests so required. This notification had been received just after the Council's previous meeting and, as had been agreed by the Council at that meeting, reference to it had been added to the Council's report to the General Council on its review of Paragraph 6 System;1
• Chinese Taipei had supplemented its list of "other laws and regulations" with information concerning its Patent Attorney Act;
• Israel had notified laws on appellations of origin and geographical indications, on copyright and on patents, as well as ordinances on designs and trademarks;
• Barbados haw notified amendments to its copyright act and related regulations, an Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, and a Patents (Priority Protection) Order Act; and
• Finland had notified amendments to its laws and regulations on copyright, trademarks, collective marks, geographical indications, designs, patents, plant variety rights, utility models, layout-designs of integrated circuits, protection of undisclosed information, and on the openness of government activities. In addition, it had notified legislation relating to the prevention of the abuse of intellectual property rights, civil judicial procedures and remedies, provisional judicial measures, special requirements related to border measures, criminal procedures and penalties, administrative procedures and remedies, and other laws.
These notifications were being circulated in the IP/N/1- series of documents.
2. The Chairman urged those Members whose initial notifications remained incomplete to submit the outstanding material without delay. He also reminded other Members of their obligation to notify any subsequent amendments of their laws and regulations without delay after their entry into force. He in particular reminded those Members who had made any changes to their laws and/or regulations to implement the Decision on TRIPS and public health and who had not yet notified such changes to the Council to do so.
3. As regards notifications of contact points under Article 69 for the exchange of information and cooperation on trade in infringing goods, he said that, since the Council's meeting in October, Lesotho had notified its contact point. In addition, updates to contact points notified earlier had been received from the European Union and Latvia.
