Relocating the Law of Geographical Indications

by Dev Gangjee

• ISBN13: 9780521192026
• ISBN10: 0521192021
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Dev Gangjee is a lecturer in intellectual property at the Department of Law, London School of Economics. He is also a research fellow at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, a research affiliate at IP Osgoode, Osgoode Hall Law School, and a visiting professor at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments page	p. vii
List of abbreviations	p. ix
Table of cases	p. xi
Introduction: locating geographical indications	p. 1
The mess: conceptual, institutional and epistemic	p. 2
Controversies and interests	p. 8
Contribution and organisation	p. 14
The Indication of Source - Paris and Madrid	p. 21
Introduction	p. 21
The Paris Convention	p. 23
The Indication of Source	p. 27
The scope of protection: Articles 9 and 10	p. 41
Alternative possibilities?	p. 52
The Madrid Agreement	p. 65
The scope of protection: Article 1	p. 65
Generic terms: Article 4	p. 68
Conclusion	p. 74
The Appellation of Origin in France	p. 77
The significance of the French experience	p. 77
The role of origin in wine regulation	p. 80
A geology of terroir	p. 83
Phylloxera and fraud	p. 93
From the AO to the AOC	p. 96
The Law of 1905	p. 98
The Law of 1919	p. 102
The Laws of 1935 and 1947	p. 108
Doing things differently: Germany and the UK	p. 115
Conclusion	p. 124
The Appellation of Origin in the Lisbon Agreement	p. 127
Introduction	p. 127
The Appellation of Origin: Article 2	p. 130
The link between product and place	p. 137
Natural and human influences	p. 141
Geographical denomination	p. 143
Reputation	p. 145
International registration and its effects	p. 146
Process of registration	p. 147
Consequences of registration	p. 152
The scope of protection: Article 3	p. 157
Nominate categories of prohibited uses	p. 158
The general prohibition against usurpation or imitation	p. 162
Absolute protection	p. 172
Conclusion	p. 177
TRIPS today	p. 183
Introduction	p. 183
An outline of Articles 22 to 24	p. 185
Pathways to TRIPS	p. 191
TRIPS as compromise(d)	p. 192
The WIPO negotiations	p. 195
Compromise and its consequences	p. 199
The definition of a GI: Article 22.1	p. 213
The sign	p. 215
The goods	p. 216
Region of origin	p. 218
The link between product and place	p. 223
The scope of protection: one definition, yet two levels	p. 237
Generic status	p. 244
The relationship between GIs and trade marks	p. 255
The language of trumps: FITFIR	p. 257
Parma ham and the inequities of FITFIR	p. 259
Descriptive fair use and co-existence	p. 261
Conclusion	p. 262
TRIPS tomorrow?	p. 265
The significance of contemporary debates	p. 265
Extending Article 23 to all products	p. 266
Normative arguments in favour of extension	p. 275
International registration and its effects	p. 288
Conclusion	p. 295
Conclusions - relocating geographical indications	p. 297
Bibliography	p. 303
Index	p. 332
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.