There is considerable variation in the nature, scope and institutional forms of legal protection for valuable geographical brands such as Champagne, Colombian coffee and Darjeeling tea. While regional products are increasingly important for producers, consumers and policy makers, the international legal regime under the TRIPS Agreement remains unclear. Adopting a historical approach, Dev Gangjee explores the rules regulating these valuable geographical designations within international intellectual property law. He traces the emergence of geographical indications as a distinct category while investigating the key distinguishing feature of the link between regional products and their places of origin. The research addresses long-standing puzzles, such as the multiplicity of regimes operating in this area; the recognition of the link between product and place and its current articulation in the TRIPS definition; the varying scope of protection; and the extent to which geographical indications ought to be treated as a category distinct from trade marks.

Over time, a product made in a specific place can develop a unique reputation. This reputation is often due to special characteristics present in the place: its people, its climate and its landscape. There are thousands of examples. In the food and drinks sector there are fruits and vegetables, wines, cheeses and cured meats: Champagne; Chedder, Parma ham and Tipperary turnips. In manufacturers there are Persian carpets, Murano glass, Toledo steel and Japanese electronics. Should all these reputations be protected by law and if so how? This book "The Law of Geographical Indications" addresses these questions. The book examines what names can and cannot be protected in national and international law and the nature of the protection given. In the last years there has been a rapid expansion of the protection given to geographical indications. The book looks at the specific systems adopted in some countries and the general systems in others. Protection is most developed in Europe and specific attention is given to the rules in the European Union and the bilateral agreements the EU has forged with many third countries. The book also examines protection in international law from the 1883 Paris Convention on the protection of intellectual property in general to the more recent TRIPs Agreement in the WTO. Also examined are the two most controversial legal issues surrounding the protection of geographical indications, namely, conflicts between trademarks and geographical indications and the generic character of certain names.

Regulations on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and Geographical Indications (GIs) have a long history, leading back to two separate organizations devoted to dealing with them: the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The WTO, through its 1994 TRIPS Agreement, gives wines a high level of protection, but leaves individual countries to draw up national GIs legislation for other agri-food products. On the other hand, the WIPO implemented the Lisbon Agreement of 1958 and gives GIs a high level of protection, but involves a lower number of countries. The US approach follows the WTO and is based on existing trademarks and competition legislation, while the EU legislation is partly based on the Lisbon Agreement and has a sui generis legislation, giving a high level of protection to agri-food GIs. The two different legislative approaches on IPRs on GIs are a source of political and economic debate between the US and the EU that impact massively on agri-food supply chains, consumer relations, and environmental and cultural aspects, as well as trade. This book provides insights into the potential impacts that the future Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement could have at national, European and international level, and covers areas such as policy setting, implications for trade and consumer perception, food safety, and rural and local development. As such, it will provide a reference point for researchers and academics in agricultural and rural economics and law, as well as policy makers.

In an increasingly globalised world, place and provenance matter like never before. The law relating to Geographical Indications (GIs) regulates designations which signal this provenance. While Champagne, Prosciutto di Parma, Café de Colombia and Darjeeling are familiar designations, the relevant legal regimes have existed at the margins for over a century. In recent years, a critical mass of scholarship has emerged and this book celebrates its coming of age. Its objective is to facilitate an interdisciplinary conversation, by providing sure-footed guidance across contested terrain as well as enabling future avenues of enquiry to emerge. The distinctive feature of this volume is that it reflects a multi-disciplinary conversation between legal scholars, policy makers, legal practitioners, historians, geographers, sociologists, economists and anthropologists. Experienced contributors from across these domains have thematically explored: (1) the history and conceptual underpinnings of the GI as a legal category; (2) the effectiveness of international protection regimes; (3) the practical operation of domestic protection systems; and (4) long-unresolved as well as emerging critical issues. Specific topics include a detailed interrogation of the history and functions of terroir; the present state as well as future potential of international GI protection, including the Lisbon Agreement, 2015; conflicts between trade marks and GIs; the potential for GIs to contribute to rural or territorial development as well as sustain traditional or Indigenous knowledge; and the vexed question of generic use. This book is therefore intended for all those with an interest in GIs across a range of disciplinary backgrounds. Students, scholars, policy makers and practitioners will find this Handbook to be an invaluable resource.

Encapsulating the most recent changes in the law, this second edition of The Protection of Geographical Indications investigates the European laws which regulate the way that geographical indications can be used in the marketing of agricultural products, food, wines and spirits. Key updates to this comprehensive second edition include two new chapters exploring the impact of Brexit and considering the protection of EU geographical indications outside Europe and of foreign geographical indications within the EU.

Historically, few topics have proven to be so controversial in international intellectual property as the protection of geographical indications (GIs). The adoption of TRIPS in 1994 did not resolve disagreements, and countries worldwide continue to quarrel today as to the nature, the scope, and the enforcement of GI protection nationally and internationally. Thus far, however, there is little literature addressing GI protection from the point of view of the Asia-Pacific region, even though countries in this region have actively discussed the topic and in several instances have promoted GIs as a mechanism to foster local development and safeguard local culture. This book, edited by renowned intellectual property scholars, fills the void in the current literature and offers a variety of contributions focusing on the framework and effects of GI protection in the Asia-Pacific region. The book is available as Open Access.

The TRIPS Agreement (for trade-related intellectual property rights) provides for the general protection of geographical indications (GIs) of product origin, including for example the special protection of wines and spirits and for the creation of a multilateral register for wines. The African Group of countries has been in the forefront of countries agitating in the World Trade Organization TRIPS Council for the extension of this special protection and of the multilateral register to industries which are of interest to developing countries, primarily agriculture. The so-called "extension question" is the central feature of the Doha Development Agenda at both the WTO and World Intellectual Property Organization. This book provides some empirical evidence and applied legal and economic reasoning to this debate. It provides both a general review of the key issues and a series of case studies from six Anglophone and four Francophone countries in Africa. These focus on major agricultural commodities such as coffee, cotton, cocoa and tea, as well as more specific and local products such as Argan oil and Oku white honey.