RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/IP/M/11 
16 February 2005 
 
 (05-0646) 
Council for Trade-Related Aspects 
of Intellectual Property Rights Special Session  
 
  
MINUTES OF MEETING  
 
Held in the Centre William Rappard
 
on 30 November 2004  
 
Chairperson: Ambassador M anzoor Ahmad (Pakistan) 
 
The present document contains the record of  the discussion which took place during the 
TRIPS Council Special Session meeting held on 30 November 2004. 
Subjects discussed              P a g e  n o s .   
A. ORGANIZATION OF WORK...........................................................................................................1  
B. NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF 
NOTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND 
SPIRITS ............................................................................................................................... .........1  
C. OTHER BUSINESS ......................................................................................................................11  
 
 
1. The Special Session agreed  to adopt the agenda as set out in WTO/AIR/2436. 
A. ORGANIZATION OF WORK 
2. The Chairman  recalled that, as indicated in WTO/AIR/2436, he had suggested at the 
September 2004 meeting that the Special Session might  follow-up on the three sets of issues discussed 
at that meeting.  Those were:  first, the major issu es of legal effects and participation;   second, the 
possible administrative and other burdens that mi ght fall on countries, in particular developing 
country Members, as a result of a notification and re gistration system;  third, a number of issues of a 
fairly technical or procedural nature relating to th e operation of a notification and registration system, 
flagged in headings 7 to 14 of document JOB(03)/ 75 of 16 April 2003.  The Chair reiterated that his 
reference to JOB(03)/75 was not designed to attribut e to it any particular status.  He further recalled 
that at the September 2004 meeting he had suggested that delegations might also wish to take up once 
more the notification phase of the system, which ha d been discussed in some detail in April 2003. 
B. NEGOTIATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF NOTIFICATION 
AND REGISTRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND SPIRITS  
3. The representative of th e European Communities  said that the issue of notification should be 
relatively uncontroversial, mainly because both pr oposals, that is the so-called "joint proposal" 
contained in document TN/IP/W/5 and the one made by his delegation in document TN/IP/M/11 
Page 2  
 
 IP/C/W/107/Rev.1, proposed a notification phase with similar features.  In his delegation's view, two 
issues warranted some attention:  the information that should be cont ained in the notification, and the 
question of translation. 
4. As regards the issue of information that should be contained in the notification, he said that 
this should be kept to a strict minimum necessary to facilitate the examination by other Members:  
This could be done using a relativel y short format, e.g. two A4 pag es maximum.  There would always 
be a possibility of asking for additional information. 
5. On the second issue, that of translation, he said that his delegation remained quite open.  
There were a range of possibilities.  One optio n would be for Members themselves to provide 
translations.  Another one would be to entrust the WTO Secretariat with the task;  in this event, a 
number of possibilities might be envisaged. 
6. The representative of New Zealand
 said that discussion on what seemed to appear to be a 
purely "technical" matter might rapidly lead to a numb er of difficult issues such as the legal effects of 
a registration, the purpose of the system, and transla tion.  With regard to the notification phase of the 
system, her delegation was trying to develop for itself a set of principles to guide its thinking 
regarding this.   
7. Firstly, the notification and registration system mu st be sufficiently flexible to deal with all 
geographical indications for wines and spirits eligib le for protection, whether they are protected under 
domestic law through registration under a sui generis  or a trademark system or through consumer or 
other laws.   
8. Secondly, the multilateral system must be cost  effective and not be unduly bureaucratic;  it 
should require as little active administration as nece ssary both domestically and at the multilateral 
level.  All costs should be met by right holders or applicants. 
9. Thirdly, the process should be as transparent and simple as possible to enable national 
decision-makers and other interested users to easily  access and use the information.  Referring to the 
suggestion made by the delegation of the Europ ean Communities in relation to simplicity, she said 
that, in order to avoid an overly prescriptive a nd unnecessarily complex notification procedure, there 
might be value in an agreed format for simplifying  the procedure.  There might also be value in 
considering whether or not there might be a useful role for contact points in the procedure.   
10. Fourthly, the notification phase should not have the effect of detracting from, or expanding, 
existing TRIPS obligations:  for example, the system  should not allow the notification of geographical 
indications that had fallen into disuse in their count ry of origin and were therefore no longer eligible 
for protection. 
11. Fifthly, the notification process must ensure that the decision-making process regarding the 
eligibility of geographical indications remain at the national level.  For example, it should be left to 
Members to decide what to notify and whether or not the conditions for notification and registration 
had been satisfied.  There would not be any role fo r the administrative body in determining whether or 
not a notification fulfilled the conditions for eligibility. 
12. The notification procedure should be consistent with the practices of the WTO and TRIPS.  
The joint proposal, co-sponsored by her delegation, proposed a system that would be simple and rely 
as much as possible on procedures familiar to all Me mbers.  To the extent possible, her delegation 
would encourage a notification which was consistent  with existing models, such as the ones in the 
area of TBT or SPS, which involved simple notif ications to a central registry followed by 
dissemination of information to the membership.  TN/IP/M/11 
 Page 3 
 
 
 13. The representative of Australia  said that delegations should be  aware that discussing technical 
issues would to some extent mask the fact that th ere remained other significant areas of disagreement, 
namely the legal effects of registrations and par ticipation in the multilateral system.  It would be 
difficult for his delegation not to have these two issues in the back of its mind since the type of system 
and the extent of burdens that it would impose would inevitably have an effect on the so-called 
"technical" issues.  He reiterated his delegation's posi tion in regard to the mandate for this negotiation:  
as was made clear in Article 23.4, the system must  be voluntary and should not result in a change in 
the current balance of rights and obligations in the TRIPS Agreement.  In other words, this 
negotiation was not about recalibrating or amending th e TRIPS Agreement.  This was fundamental to 
Australia's approach.  His delegation was intere sted in hearing during the course of the present 
meeting whether the demandeurs  were able to give any further clarity as to what precisely they 
wanted.  
14. He further expressed his delegation's concerns  that a number of delegations were not 
participating in the discussion.  Recalling the usefulness of informal consultations between 
delegations at the September 2004 meeting, he said that  it was important to continue to try and find as 
many opportunities as possible to engage all Memb ers in the discussion since some proposals tabled 
would entail significant obligations  and burdens on all Members. 
15. On issues relating to the notification phase, he said that his delegation supported the statement 
made by the delegation of New Zealand.  Notifica tion would be an important part of the multilateral 
system, and it warranted careful thought, balanced w ith a pragmatic and focused consideration of the 
task at hand.  The Special Session should not rein vent the wheel:  notifications were after all an 
established part of the WTO practice, considering the wide range of agreements with notification 
requirements.  This should be instrumental in how the Special Session approach ed the issue.  In the 
voluntary and facilitory system envisaged by Article 23.4, Australia would be looking to minimize the burdens on Members in the notification process while  at the same time making sure that there be an 
effective system in place.  Sticking to best prac tices in the WTO was one way of doing this.  Other 
issues also deserved careful attention such as languages and translation, and the format and length of a 
notification.  This was the approach taken in  the joint proposal, which set down a number of 
reasonable requirements for notification.   
16. He further expressed support for the comments ma de by the delegation of New Zealand on 
the need for flexibility, for a cost  effective system and for transpar ency.  He said that the Special 
Session should think further about what was meant by "notification" as well as by "registration".   
17. On the content of a notification, he said that the authors of the joint proposal had made some 
suggestions.  For example, the notification should include elements such as a geographical indication 
for a wine or a spirit and the geographical area from which the geographical indication originated, i.e. a place in the territory of the notifying Member.  The information should be in the language of the notifying Member, and if it were in characters other than Latin characters, a transliteration into Latin 
characters using the phonetics of the language in which the language of the notification was made 
should be provided.  
18. Other suggestions were made to also include  elements such as the date on which the 
geographical indication received protection in the notifying Member, any time limit or date of 
expiry for that protection, and international ag reements under which the geographical indication was 
protected.  In his delegation's view, it might not be  necessary to include all these elements:  some of 
them might be dealt with outside the notification process.   
19. With regard to the body dealing with the pro cessing of notifications, his delegation could see 
a possible role for the WTO Central Registry of Notifications ("CRN").  TN/IP/M/11 
Page 4  
 
 20. The representative of Argentina
 agreed with the delegations of New Zealand and Australia 
that, while participants could enter into a discussi on of "technical" elements taken in isolation, they 
should bear in mind that the technical approach give n to each and every one of these elements would, 
when brought together, form the legal effects of th e system.  She reaffirmed certain concepts that 
were important with regard to the notification.  First, like for the registra tion phase, the notification 
phase should not generate rights in the national juri sdictions of the WTO Members because this was 
not provided for by the TRIPS Agreement.  Second,  what was important in the notification phase was 
to keep intact all the provisions of the TRIPS Ag reement, which should apply in the same way as they 
currently did.  Third, the issue of notification w as linked to participation:  notifying Members would 
be those that had expressly, i.e. voluntarily, indicated their desire to participate in the system in 
accordance with Article 23.4. 
21. The representative of Switzerland  agreed with previous speakers that the setting up and use of 
a system of notification of geographical indications should not imply excessive burdens or costs.  This 
principle should be kept in mind when discussing the characteristics of the system.   She said, 
however, that cost-related issues should be looked at t ogether with the benefits to be derived from the 
system.   To set up a system with legal effects such as a presumption of validity of the geographical 
indication would reduce significantly the costs related to the protection of geographical indications for 
producers of products identified by such indicatio ns.  Therefore, producers would no longer feel 
bound to seek protection as a preventive means in each  Member.  In the event of litigation, the 
protection of their geographical indications would be facilitated by the reversal of the burden of proof.  
The national authorities of a Member would also stand to win because they would have a reference 
tool regarding geographical indications to be protect ed.  It would suffice to make a notification at the 
multilateral level to obtain all these advantages if th e registrations produced legal effects.  For 
example, it would be particularly of interest to  producers in developing countries, who probably did 
not have the means to take preventive action in all the markets in which they intended to market their 
products.  A simple data base without legal effect s would not help make such savings since the 
information recorded would only be a source of in formation among others.  Under all the proposals 
made so far, Members wishing to benefit from th e system must in all cases make notifications, and 
this implied a certain amount of effort.  For legitimate producers, the benefits derived from a 
notification onto a simple data base without legal effects would be virtually nil because there would 
not be any reversal of the burden of proof in their favour.  With a register that creates a presumption 
of validity, the burden would no longer be on pro ducers of products identified by the geographical 
indication that had been registered without challe nges but rather on the other party.  For the Swiss 
delegation, the notification and challenge procedures should be considered as an investment to ensure 
the usefulness and viability of the system and that the costs involved would be compensated by the benefits of a truly facilitated protection.  
22. As regards the administering body, she said that this body could proceed to a formal 
examination to determine whether or not a notification met prima facie  the formal requirements that 
might be set for notifications.  This formal exam ination would facilitate the substantive examination 
that Members might make subsequently. 
23. With regard to the question of who would actually  bear the costs of the system, she said that 
one solution would be to have a fe e based on the number of notificati ons made.  This approach would 
be similar to the one adopted for the Lisbon syst em as described in the Secretariat document 
TN/IP/W/4.  It would be logical that Members usi ng, and benefiting from, the system bear the costs 
thereof.   
24. The representative of Canada
 said that his delegation agreed with the delegation of 
New Zealand that the multilateral system must be si mple, flexible and transparent.  His delegation 
expressed support for the comments by the delegation of  Australia in respect of the content of the 
notification.    TN/IP/M/11 
 Page 5 
 
 
 25. He further said that the suggestion made by the Sw iss delegation that there be a reversal of the 
burden of proof fell outside the mandate of this ne gotiation, and would disrupt the balance of rights 
and obligations established in the Uruguay Round w ith respect to geographical indications.   He 
hoped that the Special Session could at some stag e reach the agreement that the purpose of this 
negotiation was not to add new rights or obligations  but to facilitate the protection of geographical 
indications.   
26. The other suggestion made by the delegation of Switzerland that the administering body 
undertake some examination of individual notifica tions also fell outside the mandate of this 
negotiation.    
27. In respect of geographical indications that were not, or had ceased to be, protected or had 
fallen into disuse in the country of origin, he asked delegations which had not been active so far in the 
discussions whether or not it would be useful to include in the notification phase information about 
how a notifying Member was protecting the notified geographical indication in its own territory.   
28. He further said that there should be a distinc tion made between the two phases of the process:  
notification would be the action undertaken by the Me mber to notify the information, and registration 
would concern the action to be taken by the administering body.  For his delegation, the administering 
body ought to be the WTO Secretariat.  Whichever t ask was to be entrusted to the administering body, 
the system should not create additional protection for geographical indications, for example create a reversal of the burden of proof.  It should simply make the information available to other Members so 
that they could determine for themselves which geog raphical indications they wanted to protect in 
their own territory.  
29. The representative of th e European Communities
 said, in response to a comment made by the 
representative of Argentina regarding the difficulty of separating the notification and the "technical" 
issues from other issues, that the content of a notification might actually have a greater relevance in the case of a legally-binding system.   
30. Concerning the role of the administering body, his delegation supported the suggestion made 
by the delegation of Switzerland that it have the task of performing some "sanitary check" so as to 
ensure that certain information Members had ag reed to provide was actually provided.  This 
examination would occur irrespective of the substanc e;  it would concern for example information on 
the geographical indication or on the date of prot ection.  This kind of examination would help 
Members make notifications in such a way that th ey could be more easily processed by the national 
administrations of other Members.   
31. In response to a point made by the delegation of  Australia concerning the inclusion of the date 
of protection of a geographical indication in the notif ication, he said that Articles 22, 23 or 24 could 
apply depending on the date.  For example, Ar ticle 24.5 on prior trademarks which could be 
grandfathered, mentioned in its s ubparagraph (b) the date of protection of the geographical indication 
in its country of origin.  For his delegation, info rmation on this date would be useful.  The same 
applied to existing international instruments like th e Lisbon Agreement or any future system such as 
the one which was being discussed within the WTO framework.   
32. The representative of Australia
 said that the delegations of Switzerland and of the 
European Communities might not be addressing the same point in respect of the role of the administering body.  Switzerland seemed to suggest that the administering body carry out some prima 
facie  examination, which would imply some legal st andards.  The European Communities seemed to 
say that they just wanted to look for some sort of formal role.  Fo r her delegation, the greatest comfort 
might come from an exploration of the existing role  of the WTO Secretariat, for example the role 
played by the CRN.  TN/IP/M/11 
Page 6  
 
 33. With regard to the date of protection of a ge ographical indication, her delegation believed that 
the future system should operate without prejudice to the way a Member elected to protect a geographical indication.  In systems based on certifi cation marks, the issue of the date of protection 
would be relevant.  However, in the case of tr ademarks protected under common law, there would be 
no information regarding the date of protection.  Thus, information about dates might not always be 
necessary.  
34. As to information concerning international ag reements, her delegati on seriously questioned 
the relevance of such information and had concerns about the poten tial legal implications thereof, 
given the strong legal effects envisaged by the demandeurs . 
35. The representative of Chile
 expressed her delegation's full support for the comments made by 
the delegation of Australia concerning the role of the administering body and the content of a 
notification.  The administering body's role would be  only to check those elements as indicated by the 
delegation of Australia;  anything bey ond that would be outside the mandate. 
36. The representative of the United States  associated his delegation with the views expressed by 
the delegations of Australia, Argentin a, Canada, Chile and New Zealand. 
37. With regard to the information that should be  contained in the notification of a geographical 
indication, he said that the objective was to ensure that all the various systems for the protection of 
geographical indications, in particular the ones under common law, the unfair competition law, the 
trademark law, including for certification and collective marks, and special laws on the registration of geographical indications were equa lly taken into consideration in the future multilateral system.  
Therefore, the main issue would be to reflect in th e notification the information that could be provided 
under these various systems of protection.  The sponso rs of the joint proposal envisioned notifications 
under the multilateral system to include at least the following:  (i) a geographical indication for a wine 
or a spirit that met the definition of Article 22.1;  and (ii) the geographical area from which the geographical indication originated.  In additio n, when the geographical indication and the 
geographical area were in characters other Latin ones, there should be a transliteration into Latin 
characters in order to ensure a common understanding about the notified geographical indication.   
38. On the reference to international instrument s under which a geographical indication notified 
was protected, he said that despite the potential usefulness in knowing which geographical indications 
were protected in the territory of other Members,  there were other issues Members should consider.  
Under the future system, each participating Memb er should notify its own geographical indications, 
and the terms that a Member was protecting under an  international agreement would not be the focus 
of the system.   In addition, whether a geographi cal indication was protected under an international 
agreement did not address the issue of whether the term was eligible for protection in other WTO Members that were not party to that agreement.  He further said that identifying this type of 
information to be provided in a notification implie d favouritism for a system that allowed for bilateral 
agreements for specific geographical indications.   
39. As to the points made regarding the date  on which a geographical indication received 
protection and the date, if any, on which prot ection would expire, he said that Members should 
consider whether this was a viable element.  As al ready indicated by other delegations, it might not be 
possible under certain systems of protection to prov ide specific information on the date of recognition 
or expiration, e.g. under common law or unfair comp etition law, which did not require the registration 
of a term.  In addition, information concerning the e xpiry date of protection might not be relevant in 
the overall objective of ensuring that geographical in dications were used on goods that came from the 
true place of origin.  Would information about the da te of the expiry of protection for a term suggest 
that other Members would then be free to use that term since it was no longer protected in the country  TN/IP/M/11 
 Page 7 
 
 
 of origin?  Members might need to further consider whether this type of information would contribute 
to meeting the shared objective of the multilateral system.   
40. On translation, he said that concerns rema ined that there existed a large number of 
geographical indications that potentially might be not ified, with the consequent burden of translating 
these indications.  In particular, under the system proposed by the European Communities, i.e. one 
with legal effects, the issue of translation would b ecome very significant, as the information would be 
considered as intellectual property to be protected  at the national level once it was registered on the 
system.  He further said that certain Members currently did not protect geographical indications in translation.  Therefore, the issue of requiring tran slations of notified geogr aphical indications might 
not be an important element for the overall operation of the system.  
41. He said that further discussion would be necessary on whether the system should include a 
formality examination of the notified geographical  indications.  The formality examination would 
involve checking that the documentation submitted met the stipulated formal requirements such as the 
notification containing:  (i) a geographical indication for a wine or spirit that met the definition of Article 22.1;  and (ii) the geographical area from which the geographical indication originated.   
42. Finally, he said that delegations would also n eed to consider whether a special body within 
the TRIPS Council should examine the fulfilmen t of these standards before the geographical 
indication was registered on the system.  Would this impose significant resource burdens on this administering body to review all notifications?  His delegation believed that the system would be 
better managed if notifying Members certified that  a notification met the standards set out in the 
system.   
43. The representative of Switzerland
 said that her delegation agreed  with the delegation of the 
European Communities that the administering body would only make a formality examination.  It 
would examine whether or not the formal requireme nts set out for the notification were fulfilled.  
44. Her delegation agreed with the delegation of Au stralia that the indication of the date of 
protection would not be a necessary element in the notification phase since there were various systems 
providing for the protection of geographical indica tions without the date of protection being a 
necessary element of the systems.   
45. As regards the comments made by the delega tion of the United States concerning certain 
documents, she said that information on bilatera l agreements containing lists of geographical 
indications would be useful to some Members, in  particular those which did not have a special 
registration system at the national level and that it would only serve as guidance to other Members 
that these geographical indications had been recogni zed at the national level.  The fact that two 
Members were bound by a bilateral agreement did not  mean that the agreement applied to other 
Members.  If a Member had any problems regarding a notification, it should raise them in the challenge procedure.   
46. The representative of New Zealand
 said that, while there might be some scope for discussion 
of the procedure described by the delegation of the United States as a "formality assessment",  or what 
had been outlined by the Europ ean Communities, her delegation did not envisage any role for the 
administering body in terms of "qualitative" assessment .    The decisions about what to register and 
whether or not the conditions for notification had b een met must remain at the national level.  Her 
delegation did not want any system that would in any way compromise this situation.  It fully supported the suggestion made by the delegati on of Australia regarding the CRN.    
47. The representative of the European Communities
 said there seemed to be some commonality 
of views among delegations that had taken the floor that the role of the administering body should be TN/IP/M/11 
Page 8  
 
 to undertake a formality examination, as envisaged by the delegation of the United States.   He further 
said that there was no difference of views between Switzerland and the European Communities.   If a 
Member notified for example the term "bicycle" fo r services, the administering body should, before 
sending the notification to the other 147 Members, te ll the notifying Member that the notification did 
not clearly meet the requirements.   
48. With regard to the comments made by delegations  on the inclusion of the date of protection in 
the country of origin, he asked how Article 24.5( b) would then be implemented in the national 
legislation.  Would those delegations mean that on ly Article 24.5(a) would be applied;  in other 
words, only the date of entry into force of th e TRIPS Agreement would actually be taken into 
account?  He doubted that this was possible under th e TRIPS Agreement.  If relevant, the date of 
protection in the country of origin had to be taken into consideration.  He asked whether any Member 
had experienced any of the situa tions covered by Article 24.5.   
49. With regard to international agreements, he said that his delegation had no intention of 
favouring a certain type of agreement but only wish ed to ensure transparency and information.  
Information regarding international agreements would not only be helpful to Members, which in any 
event had the obligation to protect geographical indi cations, but also to producers that might be using 
in good faith a name that was protected as a ge ographical indication in another country and might 
want to know where the geographical indication w as actually protected.  There was no intention to 
give an additional legal value to the current oblig ations under the TRIPS Agreement.  If need be, his 
delegation would accept having a caveat according to wh ich the mention of international agreements 
would be for information purposes only.     
50. The representative of Argentina
 disagreed with the repres entative of the European 
Communities regarding the usefulness of mentioning any date of protection.  For her delegation, such 
a date would only be relevant to  national protection systems.   
51. In response to the comment made by th e European Communities and Switzerland on 
obligations contracted under bila teral or multilateral agreements, she said that WTO Members did not 
need to be reminded of obligations undertaken under other auspices.  She asked whether the EC 
would include in the Community registers informa tion on all the lists of geographical indications 
which might be protected as a consequence of bila teral agreements.  For he r delegation, bilateral 
agreements served other purposes:  they were conc luded, for example, in the framework of mutual 
concessions, and would not necessarily be relevant info rmation.  The idea explained by the delegation 
of the European Communities, i.e. to inform the WTO membership on the prot ection granted by some 
Members under bilateral or intern ational agreements, would create a precedent by ensuring that 
agreements concluded outside the WTO had effects on WTO Members. 
52. Referring to his earlier statement (paragra phs 24-28), the representative of Canada  said that 
his delegation was merely asking whether info rmation about how a Member was protecting a 
geographical indication would be u seful and was not advocating that the information should or should 
not be in the notification.  He further said that hi s delegation did not see any possible role for any type 
of challenge in the multilateral system nor any role  for the administering body in deciding whether a 
geographical indication notified met the definition in Article 22.1  This was a matter for individual 
Members to decide at the national level in acco rdance with the principle of territoriality.  
53. The representative of the European Communities  said that it would be a waste of resources to 
notify to 147 Members a term like "bicycle" for ser vices, which obviously did not fit in the scope of 
the register.  It was not this delegation's inten tion to have the administering body assess whether or 
not a term notified was a geographi cal indication under Article 22.1, or to have the administering 
body encroach upon Members' prerogatives.  The id ea was to avoid generating work for national  TN/IP/M/11 
 Page 9 
 
 
 authorities or giving them erroneous information, wh ich would be important even within the system 
proposed under the joint proposal.   
54. He agreed with the delegation of Argentina that bilateral agreements were commitments 
undertaken outside the TRIPS framework - alth ough some of these agreements would fall under 
Article 24.1 of the TRIPS Agreement.  Without getti ng into the debate on legal effects, he said that 
the information on protection would ensure transparen cy in trade relations:  in other words, it would 
ensure that producers were properly informed about where to use and where not to use a geographical 
indication.  
55. The representative of Canada  said, in relation to the last statement made by the delegation of 
the European Communities, that, if a Member c hose to notify a term it believed deserved some 
protection, the other Members would have the obliga tion to consider the notification and deal with it 
according to their own national procedures as they deemed fit.   
56. The representative of Malaysia  said that her delegation agreed with what was said by the 
delegations of Australia, the European Communitie s and New Zealand concerning certain principles 
regarding the notification procedure, namely simplicity, low costs and transparency.   
57. On the issue of costs, her delegation was of the view that a short notification, for example of 
two A4 pages, would contribute to low costs and woul d be consistent with the systems of notification 
currently used by the WTO and alluded to by the delegation of New Zealand. 
58. With regard to supporting documents like the legal instrument under which the geographical 
indication received protection or inte rnational agreements, she noted th at usually such texts were not 
stored in a database nor did they form part of th e accompanying documents to the notification.  Only 
references were made to them.  However, where refe rences were made in the notification, then the 
question was whether the texts mentioned would be  made available to other Members upon request, 
not only for purposes of transparency but also to ensu re that they could take  this information into 
account in the decision-making process regarding the r ecognition of notified geographical indications.   
59. The representative of Australia,  referring to the note made by the Secretariat in 2002 in 
document TN/IP/W/4/Add.1 on the WTO Central Registry of Notifications, said that there was a 
system already in place in the WTO to receive and register notifications under the WTO Agreements, and that it was evolving.  It would usefully add to  the discussions both in terms of how to approach 
the issue of notifications and the role of the admi nistering body to have eith er the Secretariat paper 
updated or have a presentation made on the operati on of the CRN in an informal mode during the 
meeting of the Special Session.  
60. The representatives of Canada
, Chile , New Zealand  and the United States  expressed support 
for the suggestion made by Australia regarding a possible presentation on the operation of the CRN.  
61. The representative of the European Communities  said that his delegation was open to 
suggestions regarding the questi on of who could be the administering body.  While having no 
objection regarding a presentation on the operation of th e CRN, he said that it would be useful to also 
have a presentation by WIPO on the Lisbon system.  He said that the presentations should however be 
made outside the time allocated for the negotiations so that delegations could focus on the substantive 
negotiations.   
62. The representative of Australia  said that it would be more sensible to start with a system the 
WTO Members were familiar with and not deal with  a system which concerned only 22 countries.   TN/IP/M/11 
Page 10  
 
 63. In concluding the discussion on this point, the Chairman
 said that the Secretariat paper on the 
CRN (TN/IP/W/4/Add.1) would be updated, that a CRN administrator would be invited to attend the 
next session to respond to questions, and that he  would hold consultations regarding a possible 
presentation on the operation of the CRN. 
64. The representative of Australia  said that a number of topics listed in document JOB(03)/75 
were not necessarily a basis for the so-called "tec hnical" discussions.  His delegation was still in the 
process of working out the topics on which discussions should be focused.  Fees and costs would be an important issue.  In this regard, the suggestion made that the cost of the system should be borne by its users was indeed interesting but might raise a number of systemic questions for the WTO.  The 
comments his delegation had made in respect of th e administering body and the CRN would also be 
relevant to the discussions on fees and costs. 
65. The representative of Malaysia
 said that paragraph 11 on "Committee responsible for 
managing the system", paragraph 12 on "Adminis tering body", and paragraph 14 on "Review by 
competent committee" might, in terms of roles an d functions, overlap.  For example, would the 
"committee" in paragraph 11 be the same as the one in paragraph 14?  What would be the role of the 
TRIPS Council under the future system?  She said that her delegation was reflecting on these issues 
and would revert to them at a later stage.   
66. The representative of the European Communities  agreed with the comment made by the 
delegation of Australia regarding fees and costs, in cluding the possible systemic implications for the 
WTO, as well as with an earlier comment made by  the representative of Argentina that much would 
depend on the system which would be adopted.  He re iterated that his delegation was in favour of the 
principle that those who benefited most from the system should carry the costs in a commensurate 
manner, and was open to discuss the various possibilities to articulate that principle in practice.  He 
recalled that there were already many internationa l agreements that were currently applying this 
principle, such as the Madrid Protocol Concerni ng the International Registration of Marks or the 
Lisbon Agreement.  He suggested looking at some of  the existing systems and exploring them in an 
"abstract" way, that is leaving aside the issues of legal effects and of the role of the governments in 
participating in the system.   He asked whether the Secretariat could provide, in a single document, 
some information on how costs had been allocated to different Members within existing notification 
systems at the WTO and elsewhere. 
67. The representative of Argentina  said that her delegation was opposed to the last suggestion 
made by the delegation of the European Communitie s concerning the various existing systems such as 
those of Madrid or Lisbon.  He r delegation might however consider discussing the issue of the costs 
of the CRN for Members and for the WTO. 
68. The representative of the European Communities  said that his delegation supported the last 
suggestion made by the delegation of Argentina.  He  would suggest that the Secretariat provide in a 
single document information regarding costs, not onl y on the CRN but also on other systems within 
and outside the WTO.  
69. Finally, he expressed his delegation's concer n that there had been no progress in this 
negotiation, and said that the time could be better u sed for substantive negotiations.  He further said 
that his delegation had since the beginning of th e negotiation made moves and concessions to take 
into account points and issues raised by other dele gations.  He had not so far seen any move or 
concession by the joint proposal group. 
70. The representative of Australia  said that his delegation also had concerns about the lack of 
progress.  The co-sponsors of the joint proposal, which were not the demandeurs  in this negotiation,  
had tried to further explain or document their a pproach.  What was missing in the negotiation was a  TN/IP/M/11 
 Page 11 
 
 
 clear sense of what the demandeurs  were looking for.  For example, he would like to know the status 
of the Hungarian proposal contained in document IP/C/W/255.   
71. The representative of the European Communities  said that it was his delegation's 
understanding the Hungarian proposal was a valid  option that had received support from certain 
Members and that it should remain on the table for th e time being.  With regard to certain systemic 
issues raised by proposals that were made by  WTO Members before becoming members of the 
European Union, he did not believe that it was up to the Special Session to address them.   
72. The representative of Canada  asked whether or not there were other WTO Members 
supporting that proposal. 
73. The representatives of Moldova  and Switzerland  expressed interest in the proposal made by 
Hungary and considered that it would be useful to keep this proposal as one of the possible options for 
the elements of the system.   
74. The Special Session took note  of the statements.  
C. OTHER BUSINESS  
75. With regard to meetings in 2005, it was agreed  that the Special Session would hold meetings 
back to back with the meetings of the regular sessi on of the TRIPS Council, that is on 11 March, in 
the weeks starting 13 June and 24 October, and that a meeting would also be held on 
16 September 2005.  
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