XN000022-1996-12-20 — Page 11

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9.

Both sides agreed to further exchange of experience in the areas of:

environmental protection legislation, environmental monitoring quality control, air pollution index,

construction noise control, and

conservation of potable water resources.

Before the meeting which was held on Thursday (December 19), the Guangdong delegation visited the Stonecutters Sewage Treatment Works site, the Air Pollution Indexing and Forecasting System of the Environmental Protection Department and the Black Point natural gas-fired power station.

End

Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement

A spokesman for the Trade and Industry Branch said today (Friday): "All the provisions of the Intellectual Property (World Trade Organization Amendments) Ordinance 1996 (the TRIPS Ordinance) have come into operation starting from today.

"It enables Hong Kong to fulfill its obligations under the Agreement on Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) some three years ahead of the deadline."

The spokesman said: "The early implementation of the TRIPS Agreement demonstrates Hong Kong's total and firm commitment to a high level of intellectual property protection. It shows that Hong Kong is living up to its international reputation as a staunch supporter of intellectual property protection, and is a responsible trading partner in the multilateral trading system."

Hong Kong is a founding member of the WTO. The TRIPS Agreement sets out the standards with which WTO Members are obliged to comply in respect of various types of intellectual property rights protection, including copyright, trade marks, patents, industrial designs and topographies of integrated circuits. It also sets out the requirement for enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The TRIPS Ordinance was enacted on May 3, 1996. Half of the provisions of the TRIPS Ordinance which required no subsidiary legislation commenced operation on May 10, 1996. These provisions include the new copyright piracy offence to tackle masterminds of cross-border copyright piracy activities and provisions to facilitate disclosure of information by the Hong Kong Customs to copyright owners for civil actions or to other Customs authorities for international cooperation.