WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONIP/C/W/156
15 October 1999
(99-4440)
Council for Trade-Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights
WTO SECRETARIAT TECHNICAL COOPERATION IN THE TRIPS AREA
Note by the Secretariat
1. This document updates the information on the WTO Secretariat's technical cooperation
activities in regard to TRIPS matters contained in document IP/C/W/110, dated 7 September 1998.  It
covers the period from September 1998 to October 1999.  It focuses on the Secretariat's technical
cooperation activities that specifically relate to intellectual property.  However, it should be noted that
the general technical cooperation and training activities of the WTO Secretariat usually cover
intellectual property.  These activities as they relate to intellectual property matters are brieflydiscussed in the last section of this note.
Main Orientations
2. The focus of the Secretariat's technical cooperation activities specifically in relation to TRIPS
has continued to be on assisting Members to understand the rights and obligations which flow fromthe TRIPS Agreement.  It has been aimed at helping Members to assess the amendments that may be
needed to their national legislation, the adaptations in institutions that may be called for and  other
requirements for which they would need to plan, and to train staff, both for these purposes and for the
actual implementation of TRIPS consistent legislation in the fields of standards and enforcement.  The
purpose has also been to assist Members to partic ipate fully in the operation of the TRIPS Council,
including to meet their procedural obligations under the Agreement, and the other mechanisms of the
WTO related to TRIPS matters. The technical cooperation made available has been essentiallydemand-driven.  Importance has been attached to ensuring complementarity and cooperation with
other intergovernmental organizations, in particular WIPO.  The main modes of supply of technical
cooperation specifically relating to the TRIPS Agreement have been information and advice given to
Members in Geneva, seminars and workshops for developing countries, technical missions to
individual Members, and, to a lesser extent, NGO conferences.
3. The number of activities to which the Secretariat officials dealing with intellectual property
matters have contributed in and outside Geneva has further increased from the previous reporting
periods.  However, the extent to which requests for assistance could be responded was, in the course
of the reporting period, increasingly constrained by a shortage of personnel and financial resources.
In addition, the heavy reliance on extra-budgetary funds has made it difficult to plan future events inan efficient manner.
Information and Advice Given to Members in Geneva
4. A large part of the work of Secretariat officials dealing with intellectual property matters has
been concerned with providing information in response to questions put to them by representatives ofMember governments.  The issues raised have concerned, for the most part, the meaning of particular
provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, the fulfilment of notification requirements under the Agreement
and matters under discussion in the TRIPS Council.  Matters have been raised with the Secretariat not
only by local delegations but also by visiting intellectual property officials and as a result of directIP/C/W/156
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contacts from officials in capitals by phone or in written form.  Often the issues raised relate to draft
legislation under consideration.  Advice and information has also been given to officials from
acceding countries and representatives of the private sector.
Seminars and Workshops for Developing and Acceding Countries
5. The Secretariat provided speakers to 34 in ternational, regional and national seminars,
workshops and other events outside Geneva devoted in whole or in large part to the TRIPS
Agreement or to a specific aspect of the Agreement and aimed to be of benefit to officials of
developing and acceding countries directly concerned with implementation of the Agreement.  Many
of these seminars were organized by WIPO.  The financial assistance of the International Bureau of
WIPO made it possible for WTO Secretariat officials to participate in WIPO organized meetings
outside Geneva.  In addition, a number of regional and national seminars provided the Secretariat anopportunity to assist host governments on specific issues.  Participation of the Secretariat officials in
certain other seminars was also financed by the hosts or organizers.  The Annex to this document
contains a list of technical cooperation missions outside Geneva in the TRIPS area and two
international technical cooperation activities in Geneva.  In addition, the Secretariat provided speakers
to a number of seminars and training programmes  organized in Geneva by others, notably WIPO.
Cooperation with WIPO and Other Intergovernmental Organizations
6. As indicated in this note and earlier reports submitted to the Council for TRIPS,1 cooperation
with WIPO has been a key feature of WTO Secretar iat technical cooperation in the TRIPS area.  This
has been based on the Cooperation Agreement between the two Organizations, Article 4 of whichdeals with legal-technical assistance and technical cooperation.
2
7. In pursuance of the Cooperation Agreement, WIPO and the WTO launched, in July 1998, a
Joint Initiative on Technical Cooperation to assist developing countries to meet their commitments
under the TRIPS Agreement by the year 2000.  The Joint Initiative builds on the existing cooperation
between the two Organizations and their existing programmes in this connection. Under the joint
initiative, the two Organizations committed themselves to use available resources to provide, on
request, assistance to enable developing country Members of the WTO to comply with obligations
under the TRIPS Agreement within the applicable tim e limits.  To date, more than thirty Members
have made requests for assistance to one or both of the Organizations under the Joint Initiative.  It
should be noted that this number refers to only those developing countries that have requested
assistance specifically under the Joint Initiative.  Technical assistance provided individually by each
Organization, or jointly under the Cooperation Agreement, has of course covered a much largernumber of countries.
8. Following a discussion between the two Organi zations on the way to respond to each of the
requests under the Joint Initiative, the International Bureau of WIPO has taken the lead in organizing
and providing the bulk of the assistance requested.
 3  The WTO Secretariat has contributed to these
                                                     
1  See documents IP/C/W/110, 79 and 36.
2 The Agreement Between the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade
Organization came into effect on 1 January 1996.  Article 4 of the Agreement provides for the InternationalBureau of WIPO to make available to developing country WTO Members which are not Members of WIPO thesame legal-technical assistance relating to the TRIPS Agreement as it makes available to Member States ofWIPO which are developing countries.  The WTO Secretar iat is required to reciprocate.  The Agreement also
provides for the International Bureau and the WTO Secretariat to enhance cooperation in their legal-technical
assistance and technical cooperation activities relating to the TRIPS Agreement for developing countries, so as
to maximize the usefulness of those activities and ensure their mutually supportive nature.
3 See document IP/C/W/155/Add.4, which contains information on WIPO's technical cooperation
activities relevant to the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement, including those relating to theimplementation of the Joint Initiative.IP/C/W/156
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activities to the extent that its resources have permitted.  During the reporting period, WTO staff
members have participated in 10 events organized by WIPO outside Geneva.  In certain instances, the
WTO Secretariat has taken the lead in providing assistance under the Joint Initiative, in particular
when it has come to matters relating to WTO mechanisms.
9. Another mode of follow-up agreed with WIPO and Members concerned has been the
organization of joint events to respond to matters raised under the Joint Initiative.  A WIPO-WTO
Joint Symposium on the Implementation of TRIPS was organized for the French-speaking Sub-
Saharan African countries, and two joint national semi nars were held in Latin America.  Also relevant
for the Joint Initiative was a Joint UPOV-WIPO-WTO Symposium on the protection of plant varieties
held in Geneva.  This Symposium was followed by three joint UPOV-WIPO-WTO regional
workshops on the protection of plant varieties, held in Egypt, Kenya and Thailand.
10. There are also on-going forms of cooperation between the two Organizations outside the Joint
Initiative.  The two Secretariats have contributed to each other's training activities in Geneva.  For
example, the WTO has provided speakers to the WIPO Worldwide Academy, and WIPO has provided
half-day long briefings to the participants of the WTO trade policy courses.  Furthermore, the
International Bureau of WIPO and the WTO Secretariat organized a Joint Symposium on "The
Process of Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement" in Geneva on 16 September 1998.4
11. The WTO Secretariat has also cooperated in the provision of technical cooperation in the area
of TRIPS with a number of other intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental
organizations.
Other Technical Cooperation and Training Activities
12. As noted above, the general technical cooperation and training activities of the WTO
Secretariat5 usually cover intellectual property.  Secretariat officials working on intellectual property
matters have participated in these activities to the extent possible.  Such activities have included
seminars, workshops and training courses aimed at providing an overall appreciation of the WTO
provisions and mechanisms held in Geneva and outside Geneva and other assistance.  For example,
the regular and special WTO Trade Policy Courses include presentations on the TRIPS Agreement,and the participants in the regular courses spend half a day at the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), learning about that Organization, its conventions and activities.
13. In addition, the training material and other documentation prepared by the Secretariat contain
information on the TRIPS Agreement.  A computer-based training package on the WTO was prepared
by the Secretariat, which is now accessible on the WTO website at http://www.wto.org.
6 One of its ten
                                                     
4 The Symposium was a follow-up to two joint workshops on specific aspects of technical cooperation,
one on the "Border Enforcement Provisions of the TRIPS Agreement", held in September 1996, and the other on"Technical Cooperation Aimed at Improving Human Re sources and Institutional Capacities Required to
Implement the TRIPS Provisions on Domestic Enforcement", held in July 1997.
5 A Manual on Technical Cooperation and Training published by the Secretariat provides a description
of technical cooperation and training activities available in the WTO, how Members can benefit from suchassistance and how requests should be filed to participate in the activities.  The guidelines for WTO technicalcooperation, adopted by the Committee on Trade and Development on 15 October 1996, are contained indocument WT/COMTD/8, and the implementation modalities for the administration of technical cooperationactivities are contained in document WT/COMTD/W/29, dated 25 July 1997.  A report on technical cooperation
and training (1998) is contained in document WT/COMTD/W/62, dated 6 May 1999.  A WTO programme for
technical cooperation (three-year plan 1999-2001) is contained in document WT/COMTD/W/48, dated 20October 1998.
6 The training package is available as a set of over 350 transparencies, a booklet that contains a short
explanation for each bullet point appearing on the transparencies, and, once all the material is available in theIP/C/W/156
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modules deals with the TRIPS Agreement.  The topical pages on intellectual property on the WTO
website contain a wealth of information on the TRIPS Agreement, and provide links to information
contained on the WIPO website.  More information and new features are currently being added to
these pages.  The WTO website provides access to the working documents database (Documents
Dissemination Facility), that contains unrestricted and derestricted (i.e. public) WTO documents,including documents of the TRIPS Council.
7  To help Members with notification procedures and
documentation, the Secretariat has continued to establish WTO reference centres in developing
countries, the number of which is now 67.
                                                                                                                                                                    
three working languages, on a CD-ROM.  The package is currently available on a CD-ROM, which provides
access to the entire contents of the WTO website up to the end of March 1999.
7 The texts of the laws and regulations attached to notifications under Article 63.2 of the Agreement are
not contained in the DDF, since they have not generally been put into machine-readable form by the WTO
Secretariat.  However, as provided in Article 2(4) of the Agreement between the WIPO and the WTO, the WTO
Secretariat transmits to the International Bureau of WI PO copies of such texts, and the International Bureau
places such copies in its collection.  The Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (CLEA) is now available athttp://www.wipo.int/clea and http://clea.wipo.int.IP/C/W/156
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ANNEX
Technical Cooperation Missions in the TRIPS Area from September 1998 to October 1999
Date Place Mission
16 September 1998 Geneva WIPO-WTO Joint Symposium on "The Process of
Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement"
23 September 1998 Saudi Arabia Lecture on the TRIPS Agreement at a regional IsDB
(Islamic Development Bank)/WTO Trade Policy Course
24-25 September
1998Brazil WIPO National Seminar on TRIPS
14-16 October 1998 Jamaica WIPO National Seminar on Intellectual Property and
WIPO Symposium on Intellectual Property for the
Judiciary
10-11 December
1998Poland Workshop on the TRIPS Provisions Relevant to the
Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications,organized by the European Patent Office (EPO) for the
staff of the Polish Trademark Office and various
enforcement agencies
26-27 January 1999 France EU Phare Programme on IP;  Seminar for the Central and
Eastern European and the CIS countries, organized in
conjunction with the 33
rd MIDEM Conference
1-2 February 1999 Spain Seminar on IP for Slovenian officials, organized by the
Spanish and Slovenian Governments
6-7 February 1999 Kenya African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)/United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting
8-10 and 11-12
February 1999Kenya Crucible Group meetings on biotechnology and related
matters
15 February 1999 Geneva UPOV-WTO-WIPO Joint International Workshop on the
Protection of Plant Varieties
22-24 February 1999 Oman WIPO Arab Regional Seminar on the Economic
Importance of IP
8-15 March 1999 Singapore Second Joint Singapore-WTO Regional Trade Policy
Course
15-19 March 1999 Ghana WTO National Seminar on WTO and the Multilateral
Trading System
18-19 March 1999 Thailand UPOV-WTO-WIPO Joint Regional Workshop on the
Protection of Plant VarietiesIP/C/W/156
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Date Place Mission
23-26 March 1999 Central African
RepublicWIPO-WTO Joint Symposium on the Implementation of
TRIPS for French-speaking Sub-Saharan African
countries
29-30 March 1999 Zimbabwe WIPO African Subregional Symposium for English-
speaking Sub-Saharan African developing countries
30 March–2 April
1999People's
Republic
of ChinaState Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic
of China Seminar on the Protection and Enforcement of
Trademarks
6-8 April 1999 Cameroon WIPO Subregional Symposium for French-speaking Sub-
Saharan African developing countries
14-15 April 1999 Dominica WIPO CARICOM seminar for Caribbean Countries19 April 1999 Pakistan IsDB/WTO Trade Policy Training Course3-4 May 1999 Egypt UPOV-WIPO-WTO Joint Regional Symposium on Plant
Varieties
6-7 May 1999 Kenya UPOV-WIPO-WTO Joint Regional Symposium on Plant
Varieties
20-21 May 1999 Hong Kong,
ChinaPacific Economic Basin Council (PBEC) Working
Committee on Technology – Plenary session panel
14 June 1999 Korea APEC IPR/Korean Industrial Property Office Symposium
"IPEG Technical Cooperation Programme to Assist the
WTO/TRIPS Implementation"
14-15 June 1999 Venezuela WIPO/WTO Joint National Seminar17-18 June 1999 Colombia WIPO/WTO Joint National Seminar24-25 June 1999 Paris EU/Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) seminar on IP
21 July 1999 Uruguay WTO Short Regional Trade Policy Course
28-30 July 1999 Kenya Seminar on WTO for Kenyan Parliamentarians16-17 August 1999 Brazil Brazilian Intellectual Property Association (ABPI)
National Seminar on IP
16-18 August 1999 Thailand WHO Regional Consultation on the WTO Multilateral
Trade Agreements and their Implications on Health
18-27 August 1999 Uganda WIPO African Introductory Course on TRIPS for English
speaking African and certain other countriesIP/C/W/156
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Date Place Mission
25-27 August 1999 Kyrgyz
RepublicWIPO regional IP seminar
7 September 1999 France WIPO/Centre d'Etudes Internationales de la Propriété
Industrielle (CEIPI) course for developing countries
11-13 October 1999 Swaziland WIPO Subregional Symposium for Judges on
Enforcement
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