Protection of geographical indication: a new convergence or an old divergence?

Abstract

Geographical Indications was conceptualized in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights in 1995 (TRIPs Agreement) and become one of the most contentious intellectual property rights issues in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other multiple treaties. The establishment of a multilateral system for the notification and the registration of Geographical Indications has been widely debated across the world in the last decades. The TRIPs mandates for the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of GIs for WTO members. However, this new evolution has not been brought into effect even though it has been a decade since the first discussions on this issue at the Fourth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha in November 2001. At WIPO, the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications signed in May 2015 enlarges the international registration system to GIs as defined by TRIPs, but the negotiations have not come to an end so far. After providing a brief background to the protection for Gis in WTO/TRIPs, the paper analyzes the multilateral notification and registration system mandated by TRIPs and the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement and its potential impacts for the further development of GI protection globally.