162. The Chairperson recalled that the General Council, when it had discussed the issue of electronic commerce on 8-9 May 2001, had invited the various subsidiary bodies concerned, including the Council for TRIPS, to continue their work and report back to the General Council.6 Given that a dedicated discussion on electronic commerce had been held on 15 June 20017 under the auspices of the General Council, for the purpose of examining cross-cutting issues related to electronic commerce identified by delegations, he suggested that the TRIPS Council focus more on the TRIPS-specific issues. Since the previous meeting, the TRIPS Council had received two communications on electronic commerce from Cuba and Switzerland (documents IP/C/W/264 and IP/C/W/286, respectively).
