At WTO Next Week: GI Register, Plain Packaging, Women In Innovation

The next meeting of the World Trade Organization intellectual property committee is expected to include discussions on women and innovation, and concerns about legislative efforts in the United Kingdom and Ireland to introduce plan packaging for tobacco products. Prior to the meeting, informal consultations will be held on the negotiating issue of an international register for geographical indications (GIs) for wines and spirits.

The informal session on the GI register will take place on 23 February, before the 24-25 February meeting of the WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

The GI register for wines and spirits is the only intellectual property subject officially part of the Doha Round, for which members have agreed to lay out plans by July 2015.

For the TRIPS Council meeting, the United States and Norway have proposed an agenda item on women and innovation, co-sponsored by the European Union, Japan and Turkey.

And the Dominican Republic has again called for an agenda item relating to concerns about governments requiring plain packaging to discourage tobacco use in their countries, in this case the UK and Ireland. This TRIPS Council agenda will not include discussion of the ongoing dispute on plain packaging the Dominican Republic and others have brought against Australia for having introduced such legislation (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 26 April 2014).

Other discussions at the TRIPS Council may include whether non-violation complaints (complaints not relating to any direct WTO rules infringement) should apply to intellectual property-related disputes. A moratorium several times extended is set to expire in December.

Not on the TRIPS Council draft agenda is the question of an extension of the 2016 deadline allowing least-developed countries to refrain from protecting intellectual property on pharmaceutical products. At press time it was not confirmed whether it would come up at the meeting, but according to some sources, the issue is expected to be on the agenda of the next session of the Council, in June.