28th February 2007
No consensus on key issues in the trips council
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Members are debating whether to extend the higher level of geographical indication (GI) protection currently accorded to wines and spirits to other products. The EU, India, Sri Lanka and Switzerland called for negotiations to develop an agreement on GI extension. This met with opposition from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan and the US, which argued that there was no mandate for doing so. The EU and Switzerland believe that commercial opportunities arising from extending GI protection to products such as ‘Parma ham’ could help compensate their farmers for liberalisation under the Doha Round. Both delegations had already brought up their demands on GIs during a 9 February session of the agriculture negotiating committee, where Argentina questioned why they were even referring to the issue. Argentina, like most ‘new world’ countries, including Australia, Canada and the US, have few well- known GIs and remain adamantly opposed to extension, preferring instead strong protection for registered trademarks. Biopiracy Well-established fault lines also reappeared on the issue of how best to minimise the granting of ‘bad’, or erroneous, patents incorporating naturally-occurring genetic resources without recognition or compensation. Countries including Bolivia, Brazil, China, India and Norway called for negotiations to amend the TRIPS Agreement in order to make it mandatory for
patent applicants to disclose the use of any biological resources or associated traditional knowledge
in their inventions. A number of African countries supported the disclosure of origin proposal, and said they were considering becoming co-sponsors. The drive for a TRIPS disclosure of origin obligation derives from biodiversity-rich countries’ desire to harmonise enforceable internationally binding intellectual property rights with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) requirement that the benefits accruing from the commercialisation of an invention based on genetic resources or traditional knowledge be shared with the community at the origin of the resource or knowledge regardingt its use.
A number of countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the US maintain that the there is no conflict between the CBD and the TRIPS Agreement, which makes an amendment of the latter unnecessary. The proponents of this view again told TRIPS Council that negotiations on a amendment would be premature in view of the lack of consensus on its usefulness. The EU reiterated its position that the TRIPS Council was not the appropriate forum for discussing the issue, which should rather be debated at the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Enforcement Continues to Stir Controversy Members considered a new US submission on enforcement of TRIPS obligations (IP/C/W/488). Originally introduced by the EU, the issue divides Members among those that support implementing effective measures to enforce IPRs at the international and regional levels as well as multilateral discussions at the WTO, and those that feel the issue belongs at the national level.
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