PTC FORUM

The Online Journal of the Patent, Trademark and Copyright Research Foundation

Editorial Comments

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS

During the month of January, 2002, there has been a television commercial in the United States, advertising IBM's business services. It shows a gathering in a village hall in Cheddar, England. The speaker is announcing a breakthrough to the villagers: the local cheese is at last going to be given its due recognition. He turns on a computer, showing the new Cheddar website. The villagers cheer. As they do so, they are appalled to see a sign suddenly appearing on the screen to the effect that "Roquefort is better". The moral of the story is that good website management and protection can avoid the kind of hacking by which legitimate websites can be harmed.

There is, however, another moral to the story. Cheddar's name, applied to cheese, has long been generic. As a result, Cheddar is produced not only in Somerset but also as far afield as Vermont. In the first half of the twentieth century, European states began to realise that place-names could be valuable, not only for wines but also for other foodstuffs and in fact for a variety of other products associated with a specific geographical area. Many attempts were made to protect geographical indications: by general conventions, such as the Lisbon and Madrid agreements on appellations of origin and indications of source; by more limited conventions, such as the Stresa agreement on the protection of cheese names (in which Gorgonzola was protected, while Cheddar was not); and by bilateral agreements between, for example, France and Italy, under which many varieties of names were protected, ranging from Limoges enamel to Carrera marble.

Since then, there have been two important developments. One is the rapid and successful growth of new wine-producing areas, particularly in California, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, challenging the old and well-protected European names. The other is the shift in emphasis in Europe from protection by the earlier methods to protection under the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy. The European Community laws on "protected designations of origin" and "protected geographical indications" are made under agricultural provisions. (The text of the principal Regulation may be found on the European Union's website.*) Within the boundaries of the European Union, Champagne - to give the best known example - enjoys a high degree of protection. The battle to prevent Californians and Russians from calling their sparkling wines champagnes may have been lost outside those boundaries; but no wines made outside the Champagne area and bearing the description of champagne may be marketed in the European Union with impunity.

So the question arises, whether the international community should consider the whole question of protecting geographical indications and, if so, on what legal basis. (A recent addition to the digest of articles [20054] discusses the opening of the debate in the World Trade Organisation, in the context of TRIPS; an article published in 2000 by the American Society for International Law. on the "Implications of the WTO Protections for Food Geographic Indications", can be seen by clicking on asil-job.) Some developing countries are keen to protect their place-names from outside commercial exploitation. Some European countries tend to favour a strengthening of intellectual property rights in this field. Most of the New World interests appear to be indifferent or even hostile to the extension of intellectual property protection to geographical indications. Some writers doubt whether it is a legitimate branch of intellectual property at all; some consider trade-mark protection adequate. Cheddar may have lost its exclusive rights; but Stilton, which has fought many expensive legal battles to keep its distinctive name, has at least had the opportunity to register its name as a collective mark under the European Community Trade Mark system. Perhaps this is the best answer to the problem. [10006]

*On the European Union website (http://www.europa.eu.int), select first the preferred language; then Þ legislation Þ search Þ regulation / 1992 / 2081.