Compte rendu ‒ Conseil des ADPIC ‒ Afficher les détails de l'intervention/la déclaration

Ms Irene Young (Hong Kong, China)
World Trade Organization
1 NOTIFICATIONS UNDER PROVISIONS OF THE AGREEMENT
15. Colleagues will be aware that the eTRIPS project has been under development for some time and that the Secretariat has updated the Council on the progress over several years. I am pleased to report that the first major stage is coming close to practical completion, namely an online facility for all forms of notification and submission of review materials relating to the work of the Council. I would like to recall the principles that underline this project. 16. First, this online platform is intended to facilitate existing arrangements, consistently with the guidance in the TRIPS Agreement itself and in the decisions of this Council regarding notifications and review processes. Moreover, it remains an entirely optional tool for Members to use. It doesn't replace the existing methods, but we do hope that it will become much more convenient for Members. Among the objectives of the project is to make it significantly easier to file notifications. Secondly, it will also be easier to consult past notifications, including those of your own delegation, and to get up to date as to the state of play. This is becoming increasingly important as we move into twenty-two years of accumulated notifications. Thirdly, the tool will enable delegates generally to survey notifications and review materials across the full sweep of agenda items and work of the Council. 17. The on-line submission gateway is almost ready. In that regard we would like to offer Members at the conclusion of this session of the Council a brief demonstration of that tool. We have already had very helpful informal consultations with interested delegates making use of the tool to road-test it. We thank the delegations concerned for their guidance and feedback; it has helped us shape the tool in the way that will be much more practically useful for delegates to use. The coming months will see, we hope, this tool going on-line for Members to use generally. We therefore encourage delegates with impending notifications to get in touch with us and we can guide you through its practical use. We hope that this will facilitate your work and perhaps enable you to focus less on mechanical and more on substantive things. We are quite aware that it is a huge workload for delegations to trace up and to submit notifications and our single objective has been to make that an easier task. 18. The next stage is to improve the access to the material that has already been submitted. We are very conscious that this is a practical difficulty. At the workshop yesterday, concerning the implementation of Article 66.2, this was one of the questions discussed because it is an area like several others where there is a very large body of complex documentation. The idea is to develop thematic gateways on each of the main topics of interest to the Council. Once again, we will be informally consulting with you as to how to make these gateways most useful for you. In the coming months, we will reach out to you for consultations on that matter. We very much look forward to engaging with delegates on the elaboration of this important tool. Above all, I would like to thank those delegates who have sat down with us and helped us develop it.
The Council took note of the notifications and the statements made.
1. The Chairperson invited the Secretariat to report on notifications that the Council had received since its meeting in June 2017.

2. The representative of the Secretariat said that the Council had received the following updates to earlier notifications of laws and regulations notified under Article 63.2 of the TRIPS Agreement:

• Norway had notified an Act Relating to the Right to Employees' Inventions as amended in October 2015 (IP/N/1/NOR/P/9);



• Chinese Taipei had notified consolidated versions of the Copyright Act as amended in November 2016 (IP/N/1/TPKM/C/12); the Patent Act as amended in January 2017 (IP/N/1/TPKM/P/8); the Enforcement Rules of the Patent Act as amended in April 2017 (IP/N/1/TPKM/P/9); the Trademark Act as amended in November 2016 (IP/N/1/TPKM/T/7); and the Enforcement Rules of the Trademark Act as amended in March 2017 (IP/N/1/TPKM/T/8); and



• China had notified revised Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law (IP/N/1/CHN/C/4); on the Protection of New Plant Varieties (IP/N/1/CHN/P/4); and on Computer Software Protection (IP/N/1/CHN/C/5), all adopted in January 2013.



3. In addition, Gabon had notified its responses to the Checklist of Issues on Enforcement (IP/N/6/GAB/1). No other initial responses or updates to the earlier responses had been submitted since the Council's meeting in June.

4. Liberia had submitted information regarding its contact points under Article 69 of the Agreement for the exchange of information and cooperation on trade in infringing goods (IP/N/3/LBR/1). The information on the Members' transparency toolkit page had been updated accordingly.

5. The Chairperson invited delegations that had notified a new or revised legislative measure, or given responses or updates to the enforcement checklist, to briefly introduce the changes.

6. The representatives of the Norway, Chinese Taipei and China took the floor.

7. The Chairperson drew Members' attention to document IP/C/W/636, which contained the questions that India had posed to the European Union concerning a recent "Commission notice on the customs enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights concerning goods brought into the customs authority of the Union without being released for free circulation including goods in Transit".1

8. The representatives of India, the European Union and Brazil took the floor.

9. The Chairperson invited the Secretariat to provide an update on the development of e-TRIPS, an online platform for filing and consulting notifications and other Council documentation.

10. The representative of the Secretariat briefed Members on the development of e-TRIPS.

11. The Chairperson noted that, in many cases, notifications to the Council were not keeping up with the actual development of laws and regulations relating to the TRIPS Agreement. She recalled that Article 63.2 was not a one-off requirement, but obliged Members to notify any new or amended laws. She, therefore, urged Members to keep up to date their notifications by notifying any new or revised laws or regulations, as well as complete their initial notifications, in case any material was still outstanding. The same applied for the Checklist of Issues on Enforcement (IP/C/5), which had been established by the Council as an element of Members' notification obligations.

12. The Council took note of the notifications and the statements made.

IP/C/M/87, IP/C/M/87/Add.1