27. The Chairperson said that he had one new notification to report under this agenda item, namely from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe had notified that its patent law already provided for the protection of inventions of pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals by product patents.
28. The Chairperson recalled that, at the previous meeting, it had been proposed that the Council consider again the possibility of a systematic review of the implementation of Article 70.8 and 70.9. It had been agreed that, in the interests of transparency, the United States would circulate to all Members the questions that it had posed to individual Members. These questions were addressed to Argentina, Egypt, Paraguay and Uruguay and were available in document IP/C/W/113. Responses to these questions which the Secretariat had received recently from Uruguay were available in photocopied form at the present meeting and would be circulated in document IP/C/W/121 in due course.
