Mr Sherif Saadallah
Executive Director,
Office of the Strategic Use of
Intellectual Property for Development,
World Intellectual Property Organization
Ladies and gentlemen,
Fellow participants and colleagues
Good morning
1. Allow me to extend a warm welcome to one and all to Singapore. Let me also thank the WIPO Singapore Office for inviting me here this morning to deliver some opening remarks.
2. For developing countries, the effective and informed use of flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement is a salient issue. The availability of such measures is key in ensuring that monopolistic rights accorded to IP do not unreasonably undermine national developmental objectives. As you are all aware, the issue is debated extensively in various international fora, particularly in the WIPO Committee on IP and Development on the WIPO Development Agenda. However, the subject of flexibilities is not a new one. The issue was also deliberated at length when the TRIPS Agreement was negotiated during the Uruguay Round, where many countries argued successfully for the inclusion of these measures to ensure an appropriate balance in the interests of both producers and users of IP.
3. Interestingly, much of the current debate on TRIPS flexibilities has taken place in the context of promoting affordable access to patented pharmaceuticals in support of national public health objectives. This is evident in the adoption of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in 2001 and the recently concluded debates at the World Health Organization Intergovernmental Working Group on IP, Innovation and Public Health.
4. While I am confident that the discussions at this seminar will contribute further to the rich discourse on this issue, I would encourage participants to also analyze the use of TRIPS flexibilities in a wider context and beyond its application in the pharmaceutical sector.
5. As you would notice from the working document prepared for this seminar, the TRIPS Agreement already contains many cross-cutting flexibilities. The most visible one is manifested in Article 1.1 of the Agreement, which affords WTO members considerable lattitude in determining the most appropriate method to incorporate their TRIPS commitments into their national legal systems. Generally, the Agreement permits WTO members to implement their commitments in a manner that enables them to pursue policies, either in specific fields like access to pharmaceutical products or protection of their biodiversity, or more widely, in establishing macroeconomic conditions that support economic development.
6. Other flexbilities include transitional arrangements to facilitate the entry into force of the TRIPS Agreement in developing and least developed countries. Flexibilities are also available in specific areas, such as exhaustion of rights and parallel importation, and the invocation of exemptions for research, testing and public non-commercial use, to name a few.
7. As representatives of national IP offices, we need to develop an in-depth appreciation of the impact and long-term implications of their use in the course of implementing the TRIPS Agreement in our own jurisdictions. Therefore, seminars like these present useful opportunities for us to exchange pointers and consequently help members to make informed choices on the use of flexibilities. On this note, I would like to thank WIPO for taking the initiative to organize this event.
8. In conclusion, I want to wish all of you a productive seminar in the coming 3 days and an enjoyable stay in Singapore.
9. Thank you very much.