Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 12 • 22nd June 2007

‘Disclosure Group’ Gains Ground at WTO TRIPS Council

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

At a recent meeting of the WTO Council on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Members continued discussions on how best to achieve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and intellectual property protection without reaching agreement. However, a number of countries joined the so called “Disclosure Group”, which has proposed making mandatory disclosure requirements part of WTO rules.

The misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge (TK) through patents (”bio-piracy”) has been a source of major concern to a large number of Members, particularly several developing countries. For this reason, a group of developing countries (Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Tanzania, Ecuador, and South Africa — the “Disclosure Group”) last summer proposed amending the TRIPS Agreement to require patent applications to include disclosure of the origin of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge as well as evidence of prior informed consent and benefit sharing (IP/C/W/474; see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 16 June 2006, http://www.ictsd.org/biores/06-06-16/story3.htm). They argue that such requirements are necessary to support patent-related obligations that arise from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

These countries have since repeated their call for making mandatory disclosure requirements part of WTO rules, calling for text-based negotiations to develop a specific amendment. They have been opposed by Members such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, which argue that such negotiations would be premature and that even disclosure requirements might not prevent ‘bad patents’ from being granted.

At the latest TRIPS Council meeting on 5 June, the “Disclosure Group” expanded considerably, with Venezuela, the members of the African Group and the members of the Group of Least-Developed Countries (LDCs) announcing their support for the proposal.

Apart from that, the discussion followed a familiar pattern. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand said that more facts-based discussions on concrete cases of misappropriation were necessary. Japan and the US underlined their opposition to any TRIPS amendment on disclosure, saying that there is no contradiction between the WTO agreement and the CBD.

Norway supported the Disclosure Group’s call for text-based negotiations, pointing to its own similar proposal for an amendment (IP/W/473). Instead of patent revocation, the Norwegians would sanction patent applicants that fail to meet disclosure requirements outside the outside the patent system. Several countries in the Disclosure Group welcomed the Norwegian approach as a step in the right direction.

Finally, the EU reiterated its call for disclosure requirements to be negotiated outside the WTO, at the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

Brazil said that Members’ political will to engage in negotiations on disclosure as part of the Doha Round negotiations was growing. According to the Brazilian delegate, technical discussions would be pursued in informal consultations rather than at the meetings of the TRIPS Council.

The new chair of the TRIPS Council, Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah (Nigeria) will consult with Members on whether to grant the CBD Secretariat observer status at the WTO, after Brazil expressed support for doing so but the US indicated its opposition.

For full coverage of the TRIPS Council, see Bridges Weekly at http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-06-13/story4.htm

ICTSD reporting.