NEW DELHI: The TRIPS Council of the World Trade Organisation on Thursday agreed to hold a series of meetings until July-end to take inventory of their text-based talks to a proposal searching patent waivers to manage the Covid-19 catastrophe, an official said.
This has been agreed upon in the informal meeting of this council at Geneva.
The meeting follows the associates of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed by consensus to begin the text-based discussions on the proposition.
“In the casual TRIPS Council match on June 17, participants agreed to a calendar of meetings before the very end of July to perform and take inventory of their text-based talks on a pressing IP answer to Covid-19,” that the Geneva-based commerce official stated.
The goal is to prepare a document to be filed to another General Council, scheduled to occur on 27-28 July, about the progress made up to now.
The initial meeting would be an informal session on June 30.
It could be accompanied by similar meetings around July 6, 14 and 20th.
The seat of the TRIPS Council, Ambassador Dagfinn Sorli of Norway, suggested that most probably to the latter (July 20), the council is going to need to fulfill in an official manner to agree to a report on the General Council, ” the official added.
On June 30, members may talk about the range, coverage of TRIPS provisions and policy of goods of this proposed waiver from South Africa and India.
The European Union also has filed a proposal, that will be updated and circulated to others in the forthcoming days.
Several other delegations had indicated they are working on proposals which could be introduced to members shortly.
“Considering that the rather brief deadline prior to the General Council, the seat urged delegations focusing on new tricks to come forward whenever possible, to ensure an chance for these proposals to be introduced to members are available,” the official stated.
Back in October 2020, India and South Africa had filed the initial proposal indicating a waiver for many WTO members to the execution of particular provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in regard to the prevention, containment or remedy of Covid-19.
Back in May this year, a revised proposal has been filed by 62 co-sponsors, such as India, South Africa and Indonesia.
The arrangement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS came into effect in January 1995.
It’s a multilateral agreement on intellectual property (IP) rights like copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets.