TRIPS Council Meeting Split by North-South Divide

According to BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest, a European Union submission to the June 14-15 meeting of the WTO Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) met with strong resistance from developing countries. The EU "would like the TRIPS Council to carefully examine compliance of Members with the enforcement provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, pursuant to Article 68 of the TRIPS Agreement"(IP/C/W/448, available at http://docsonline.wto.org/). Such examination would include assessing "the implementation of TRIPS provisions onenforcement in detail, and make recommendations on ways to improve the situation (for instance by laying down benchmarks to evaluate the progress made by national administrations towards a higher level of intellectual property enforcement, suggesting best practices, etc) to ensure a full implementation of TRIPS obligations in this field."

WTO members also made no substantive headway in their discussions on extending the higher level of protection already accorded to geographical indications for wines and spirits to other products (GI extension) at a meeting on June 17. Similarly, limited progress was made on the establishment of a multilateral register for GIs for wines and spirits during the Special Session of the TRIPS Council from June 16-17, leading the Chair to conclude that "differences appear to be as large as ever and not have narrowed since prior to Cancun."

The next formal session of the TRIPS Council is currently scheduled for October 25-26.