The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) has organised a Dialogue on “Improving Intellectual Property (IP) Technical Cooperation for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to Facilitate the Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement” on the morning of Thursday 3rd May in Geneva. Participants will include LDC members of the WTO and other experts in the field of IP technical assistance (TA).

The transition period under TRIPS Article 66.1, for the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement by LDCs, was to end on 1 January 2006. By the Decision of the TRIPS Council of 29 November 2005, this transition period was extended to 1 July 2013. According to the Decision, and for purposes of facilitating targeted TA and financial cooperation, the LDCs were asked to “provide to the Council for TRIPS, preferably by 1 January 2008, as much information as possible on their individual priority needs for technical and financial cooperation in order to assist them taking steps necessary to implement the TRIPS Agreement”. This requires LDCs to assess their needs for TA by the end of this year.

This informal dialogue has been organised as a contribution to improving the delivery of IP-related TA to LDCs. The new ICTSD/Saana Consulting project on TA needs assessment for LDCs will be introduced, to provide professional support and, undertaken upon request, a diagnostic and assessment of technical and financial assistance needs in selected LDC countries. The aim of the project is to support LDCs in their preparation for and response to the approaching 1 January 2008 deadline for them to identify their TA needs to the WTO TRIPS Council.

The agenda of the dialogue will be to: 1) Present the project and consider countries that would be interested in participating in the assessment; 2) Clarify the methodology for assessing LDC needs in relation to technical assistance and cooperation; and 3) Explore challenges, options and further inputs for the needs assessment exercise. It will include the presentation of a diagnostic toolkit by Tom Pengelly (Saana Consulting) to provide a methodology for "Assessing the IP Technical Assistance Needs in the LDC Context".

For more information please visit the project webpage at: http://www.iprsonline.org/ictsd/LDCneeds.htm.

For more information on IP-related technical assistance for LDCs visit the IPRTA Forum.