Initial views on the post-Doha Agenda of the Council for TRIPS Prepared by the Commission on Intellectual Property Task Force on TRIPS

ICC therefore welcomed the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, including the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Proper ty Rights (TRIPS), which sets out minimum standards for obtaining and enforcing intellectual property rights. ICC attaches primary importance to the effective implementation by WTO Members of their commitments under TRIPS and continues to support the basic principles of the TRIPS Agreement: national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment; non-discrimination among sectors and fields of technology; and the maintenance of an adequate balance between rights and obligations.

ICC has always supported the need for a proper balance between different interests. In the field of patents, for example, the system should allow those who innovate technology to obtain and enforce rights protecting such technology, but it should also ensure that society as a whole benefits, for instance, from disclosure of inventions and the dissemination of innovation. The interests of third parties must also be balanced against rights provided to innovators. In the view of ICC, maintaining adequate balances is necessary for the continued successful operation and, hence, acceptance of intellectual property protection systems.

ICC has closely followed the debate on whether the patent system in general, and the TRIPS Agreement in particular, meets the interests of developing countries. In this regard, ICC wishes to reiterate its view that intellectual property protection fosters sustainable development of local innovative industries and encourages investment into developing countries. Recently, the debate focussed on the complicated issue of "access to medicines," which contains significant and broad aspects that are not intellectual property-related. It culminated in the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha in November 2001, in addition to the Doha Ministerial Declaration (DMD) and the Decision on Implementation-related Issues and Concerns.