Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 25 • 3rd July 2002
WTO Members Divided Over Geographical Indications
The issue of geographical indications was discussed at both the regular (25-27 June) and special (28 June) sessions of the Council for Trade- related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). While Members addressed the extension of additional geographical indications (GI) protection to products other than wines and spirits during the regular session, they continued negotiations during the special session on the proposed multilateral system for notifying and registering GIs for wines and spirits pursuant to the Doha Ministerial Declaration.
Extension of GI protection
During the regular session, the debate on extending the higher level of protection for GIs to products other than wines and spirits (set out in Art. 23) revolved mainly around a submission put forward by Switzerland on behalf of 20 countries (IP/C/W/353), including for the first time the EC with regard to a submission on GI extension. The EC document highlighted how GI extension could be included in the TRIPs Agreement and formulated a proposal “for appropriate action” to be included in the report of the TRIPs Council to the Trade Negotiations Committee by the end of 2002. In particular, the submission proposed that the additional protection in Art. 23 should apply to all GIs and that the multilateral register to be established should include GIs for all products. The submission stressed, however, that the proposal would not affect existing uses of names that coincided with protected GIs “to the extent that they have been in conformity with the TRIPs Agreement”.
A number of countries, including the US, Australia, Argentina, Canada, New Zealand, and Uruguay, thought it was inappropriate at this stage to put forward proposals or modalities for negotiations as no negotiating mandate existed. They also questioned the benefit of extending GI extensions, arguing that had been very reluctant to accept the additional protection for wines and spirits during the Uruguay Round and were not prepared to take on any further obligations.
Members furthermore discussed the link between traditional knowledge and GIs, and the relationship between the TRIPs Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity. For further details on these issues, see the forthcoming 11 July issue of BRIDGES Trade BioRes .
Modalities of a multilateral system for GIs
Discussions during the special (negotiating) session on establishing a multilateral system for GIs largely mirrored previous debates on this issue, even though Members went deeper into concepts and examples. Regarding the purpose of the notification and registration system, Members generally agreed that the system should not increase the level of protection that currently exists for covered products. They were divided, however, over whether countries should have to protect the terms in the multilateral system — as advocated by the EU and others — or whether it should be left to each country to decide — as favoured by Australia, Canada, Japan and the US, who envisage the multilateral system to function mainly as a database. Similar divisions were also apparent with regard to participation in the system. That is, Members disagreed over whether the “voluntary” nature of the system should only mean that the notification and registration of GIs was voluntary, or whether the protection of registered terms should also be voluntary.
The suggested target date for submitting proposals on this issue is the next special session of the TRIPs Council on 20 September, with negotiations scheduled to be finalised by the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in September 2003.
Background
Geographical indications, as defined in the WTO TRIPs Agreement, are identifications of the country or region where the quality, reputation or other characteristic of a product is essentially attributable to the geographical region. Additional protection of GIs already exists for wines and spirits (e.g. Champagne, Bordeaux and Cognac), and some countries (mainly Asia, Europe and Africa) are calling for this protection to be extended to other products (e.g. Basmati rice, Darjeeling tea or Camembert cheese). Some believe that by giving value to biological resources, GIs can provide an incentive to preserve native varieties, the environment in which the respective resources are grown, and the traditional knowledge associated with them. Others, however, are concerned that GIs will only bring new obligations for developing countries while the benefits will mainly go to developed countries that are better prepared at the national level to take advantage of GI extensions and that might use GIs as a trade barrier against developing countries’ exports.
ICTSD reporting.