Study On Protection Of Chinese Tea Geographical Indications

Protection of geographical indication has recently been one of the important topics in the field of international intellectual property. To protect geographical indication is not only our country's obligation as a member of WTO, but also beneficial for the products with Chinese characteristic and national products with high quality to maintain its international advantages, for agricultural economy to facilitate its development and for Chinese agricultural products to boost its ability of global competition. A protected geographical indication is a geographical appellation of one nation, region or place, playing a part in distinguishing sources of products, which quality and characteristics completely or mainly drives from the geographical environment, including natural and cultural factors. China is a tea's great power, there are intimate relationships between the unique quality of all teas and their geographical environment, and so, China tea is one of the most suitable agricultural produce which should be protected by geographical indication. However, there are little China tea which are protected by geographical indication effectively recently. At the same time, some disharmony phenomena, such as disharmony of laws and regulations, interest conflict in multi-party, management of multi administration, etal, is very universal in the course of Chinese tea geographical indications protection.Based on the "theory- interest - harmony -policy" structure, this thesis expounds the concept of tea geographical indication and the attribute in terms of intellectual property. It gives an analysis, in the link of the actual state of legal protection of tea geographical indications in China, on those conflict of interest within current China's legal system of tea geographical indication protection.The thesis is divided into six parts.Part one: Introduction. In this part, it expatiates the research background of geographical indications of China tea, definitudes the research meaning of geographical indications of China tea, analyzes the research survey of tea geographical indications at home and abroad, and the main research contents and methods of protection of geographical indications of China tea is put forward at the end .Part two: The theoretical explanation of protection of geographical indications. In this part, the conception definition of tea geographical indications and its historical development course are analyzed from two vision fields in Chinese and international, the attributions about intellectual property right of geographical indications of China tea is explained, which based on the theories of asset specificity, property right and information asymmetry, combining protection mode of tea geographical indications.Part three: Interest conflict in protection of geographical indications. In this part, the subject of interest conflict and interrelations about the protection of geographical indications of China tea are analyzed, definitudes the origin of interest conflict, which includes the non-cooperating -competition between different stakeholders, the hitchhike behaviors of tea seller , the contradictions between short-time benefit from resources plunderer and long -time benefit of tea geographical indications. On this basis, combining two economics theories in geographical indications of China tea, which are income and cost analyses, the benefit coordination modes of protection of geographical indications of China tea are put forward.Part four: The case study. In this part, studies three famous teas, China Longjing tea, China Xinyang maojian tea and India Darjeeling tea mainly, introduces different protection measures and management method,of three famous teas in different periods and conditions. At the same time, the promotion effect on the tea industry and relative industry after protection of geographical indications are analyzed.Part five: Policy objective and system reconstruction of China tea geographical indications. In this part, it puts forward policy objectives and system reconstruction about protection of Chinese tea geographical indications on the basis of comprehensive analysis of protection of geographical indication, which supply theoretic basis and empirical thereunder for the reestablishment of protection institution of Chinese tea geographical indications.Part six: Summary and advance prospect. In this part, it sums the significations of Chinese tea geographical indications, definitudes its ideas of sustainable development. Finally, the deficiency of this study and correlative research direction of Chinese tea geographical indications are put forward.