The second of six key areas has been added to an emerging single draft negotiating text on a geographical indications register for wines and spirits, and circulated to WTO intellectual property negotiators.
The section on “registration” has been added to a revised one on “notification” so as to have a more-or-less complete single text towards the end of March. It will contain opposing opinions but a single text, rather than having rival documents, so as tool to allow negotiators narrow down their differences more practically.
The latest addition was produced from drafting consultations he held earlier in the week involving representatives of the three groups that have submitted proposals in the talks.
Like the first draft text only on “notification”, which was circulated in the previous meeting on 13 January, this four-page draft reflects all three positions, leaving most of their differences unresolved.
The current chairperson of the 13-year-old negotiations on setting up the multilateral register, Zambia’s ambassador Darlington Mwape, while circulating the draft, said that the drafting “continues to be fragile and delicate,” with the consultations running “into a number of roadblocks”. He warned that the next issue, the legal effects or consequences of a term being registered could be doubly difficult when the drafting group resumes in the week of 8 February.
In order to help the drafting consultations progress smoothly, he set out some “rules of the road”, including deadlines for the participants to submit their drafts and an assurance that if the deadlines are missed participants can propose additions to the “composite” text during the consultations.
He also assured the whole membership that they would all have an opportunity to work on the draft “once sufficient substance is on the table”.
The new section on “registration” deals with the next steps after notification: how registration would proceed after a geographical indication has been notified, including what would be recorded or appear on the register and how the register would be updated to take account of changes to notifications or registrations — for example if a geographical indication is no longer used.
Meanwhile options in square brackets continue to reflect the different proposals of “W/52 coalition” (the EU, Switzerland and their allies), the “joint proposal group” (US, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina and others), and Hong Kong, China (whose proposal attempts to bridge the differences) — see “current proposals” below.
Some of the major differences reflected in square brackets are about the legal implications in other countries when a member registers a term, the subject that will be discussed next.
Members also differ over whether the register should only be for wines and spirits as prescribed under the present mandate, or whether the system should cover geographical indications for all products.
The chairperson told negotiators that their time “could be spent more usefully on issues that lie clearly within the mandate. In other words — and since we are in road metaphors anyway — in our group we should concentrate on building the road from Doha to Geneva as instructed by Members through the TNC, rather than worry about how many lanes the road is going to have.”
He also urged them to save time by working among themselves — both within and between their groups — to prepare for his consultations and to try and bridge their differences.
Negotiations on the proposed multilateral register for wines and spirits began in 1997, under Art.23.4 of the WTO intellectual property agreement (TRIPS) and were included in the Doha Round when it was launched in 2001.
The six main areas to be covered are:
notification — eg, how a term would be notified and which member would do it (also related to “participation”)
registration — eg, how the system would be run and the WTO Secretariat’s role
legal effects/consequences of registration, in particular any commitments or obligations on members arising from a term’s registration (also related to “participation”)
fees and costs — including who would bear these burdens
special treatment for developing countries (officially, “special and differential treatment”)
participation — whether the system is entirely voluntary, or whether a term’s registration would have some implications for all WTO members.
Source: WTO news items
