7.1. The Chairman recalled that, at the Ninth Session of the Ministerial Conference, Ministers had directed the TRIPS Council to continue its examination of the scope and modalities for complaints of the types provided for under subparagraphs 1(b) and 1(c) of Article XXIII of GATT 1994 and make recommendations to their next Session, which they had decided to hold in 2015. It had been agreed that, in the meantime, Members will not initiate such complaints under the TRIPS Agreement. At its meeting in February 2014, the Council had had its first discussion of the matter after the Ministerial Conference. The United States had just submitted a paper entitled "Non-Violation Complaints under the TRIPS Agreement" (being circulated in document IP/C/W/599).
7.2. In opening the floor for comments, he said that he would particularly welcome any thoughts on how the Council could best move forward on this matter in order to be in a position to agree in a timely manner on its recommendations to the next Ministerial Conference. He recalled that the Council's original mandate under Article 64 of the Agreement was to provide recommendations on scope and modalities of such disputes to the Ministerial Conference by 1999, and that the Council had most recently been asked to work towards establishing recommendations for the Ministerial Conference that would be convened at the end of 2015.
7.3. The representatives of the United States, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Switzerland, South Africa, Brazil, China, Bangladesh, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, India, Japan, Egypt, the European Union, Korea, Cuba, Nigeria on behalf of the African Group, Canada, the Russian Federation, Chinese Taipei, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru took the floor.
7.4. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.
