The 13th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) on IP and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World IP Organization (WIPO) is held recently in Geneva. The delegation of the Chinese Government, consisting of representatives from SIPO, National Copyright Administration of China and the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations Office in Geneva attends the session.
The agenda of the session includes approving the report of the last session, ratifying observers, voluntary funds participated in by indigenous and local communities, folklore, traditional knowledge, genetic resources and the future work. Paraguay Ambassador is elected as chairman.

The discussions on folklore and traditional knowledge are very similar. For the topic of traditional knowledge, in general, countries such as the United States, Japan and European countries still insist to first clarify the definition and goals for protection. According to them, no binding international legal document should be pursued and various countries should flexibly choose their own protection manners; developing countries require establishing international legal documents with binding effect; while underdeveloped countries stress that they should be helped so as to strengthen their capacity construction.

The focusing of the session is the future work. In order to accelerate IGC process, African group, before opening of the session, submits a written suggestion on establishing the working mechanism of expert panel when IGC is not in session.

Currently, many divergences exist on various IGC topics and the negotiation is hard to make substantial achievements in short term.