A WTO complaints checklist

March 15 2012

Ukraine’s complaint against Australia’s law to introduce plain packaging for tobacco is the 30th to be filed alleging a breach of the TRIPs Agreement. But how do complainants fare?

Managing IP assessed the nine complaints that have been filed since 2000 – five years after the Agreement came into force.

The WTO cases so far
Year	Country	Complainant	Complaint	Result
2000	US	EU	Section 337 (International Trade Commission)	Consultations requested
2000	Argentina	US	Protection of patents and test data	Settled 2002
2000	Brazil	US	Patent protection (relating to compulsory licensing and “local working”)	Panel established 2001. Settled later that year
2001	US	Brazil	Patent protection (allegedly discriminatory rules on inventions developed with government support requiring them to be made in the US)	Consultations requested
2003	EU	Australia	Use of trade marks and GIs for agricultural produce	Panel report issued 2005. The EU says it has implemented its recommendations by adopting a new regulation. Australia and the US are not satisfied and ask the EU to revise.
2007	China	US	Protection and enforcement of IP, particularly related to thresholds of infringements before criminal sanctions are applied	Panel report issued 2009, saying parts of China’s laws are inconsistent with TRIPs. In 2010 China reports that it has revised its laws.
2008	China	EU	Measures affecting to financial information services. The EU complains about the role of the state news agency Xinhua.	China and the EU sign an MOU settling the dispute.
2010	EU	India	Seizure of generic drugs in transit	Consultations requested
2010	EU	Brazil	Seizure of generic drugs in transit	Consultations requested

Of the nine complaints filed, four have yet to be concluded, two of which are effectively dormant. Filing a complaint requires the complainant to draw up a legal case, which means that it is rarely done lightly. But in many cases the parties do not take the next step of requesting the WTO to convene a panel to assess the dispute. This suggests that that in many cases governments simply want a formal record their objections to the policies of a trading partner or to use the dispute mechanism to exert political and public relations pressure on them.