Geneva, 26 November 2004
Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
FURTHER OBSERVATIONS BY SWITZERLAND ON ITS PROPOSALS REGARDING THE DECLARATION OF THE SOURCE OF GENETIC RESOURCES AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN PATENT APPLICATIONS
Communication from Switzerland
Document number: IP/C/W/433 25 November 2004 (04-5134)
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The following communication, dated 18 November 2004, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of Switzerland.
This present communication from Switzerland contains in its annex further observations on the Swiss proposals to amend the Regulations under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). These proposals were presented to the Working Group on Reform of the PCT of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in May 2003, and would explicitly enable the Contracting Parties of the PCT to require patent applicants to declare the source of genetic resources and traditional knowledge in patent applications. The further observations on these proposals were posted on the PCT Reform Electronic Forum on 18 October 2004, and submitted to the Working Group on PCT Reform for its seventh session to be held from 30 May to 3 June 2005. They concern the formal vs. the substantive nature of the disclosure requirement, the optional vs. the mandatory introduction of the disclosure requirement at the national level, and the concept of the "source." An appendix to the further observations contains the proposed amendments to the PCT Regulations.
By also submitting these further observations to the TRIPS Council, Switzerland aims at informing the discussions of the TRIPS Council on paragraph 19 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration about its efforts in the WIPO Working Group on the PCT Reform. This present communication complements the two previous communications Switzerland submitted to the TRIPS Council in June 2003 and June 2004 respectively: The first communication contains in its annex the proposals by Switzerland to amend the PCT; the second communication contains in its annex additional comments on these proposals, which Switzerland submitted to the Working Group on PCT Reform in May 2004,6 and which concern the use of terms, the concept of "source," and the scope of the obligation to declare this source in patent applications...