Geographical Indications System Of International Protection

Geographical indications is a special trademark identifying the origination, the geographical indications is an important Intellectual Property Rights which drawn extensive attention of the International Community. In China, the legislation concerning the protection of geographical indications is incomplete, and also weak& fragile in its theoretical study. The Article attempts to analyze the present practice of geographical indications protection both in China and the world, and find out the gap and problem existing on legal protection of geographical indications on a basis of general theory, and put forward the legislative mode and specific legislative conception applicable to China on geographical indications protection by learning from the successful experiences of international community and other developed countries.Currently, there're various forms for protection of geographical indications, including unfair competition and passing off, collective and certification marks and sui genres rights. The dispute among different mode reflects a deeper contradiction. Different mode of protection will bring different influence and financial interest.Nowadays, China has adopted collective and certification marks as a major mode to protect geographical indications, but for the reason to adopt this mode lacks enough theoretic basis. This article hold that the mode of collective and certification marks has the advantage of definitive subject and clear scope of protection, which can overcome the limition of the traditional protection of geographical indications, which can't designate the subject and scope of right clearly. And more importantly, the Trademark mechanic not only can promote the protection of geographical indications, but also and promote the use and value added. Up to now, many peoples believe that the system of origin of application administrated by the State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ)is the root of the contradiction arose between the trademark protection for geographical indications and the origin of appellation. According to this article, the author believe that this opinion is ex pane, and the right answer should be use trademark as a major method to protect geographical indications, and the administration in the standardization as complementarily. In the problem of protection of geographical indications, the two State office should make a clear distinction and cooperate with each other. Based on this holding, this article introduced the different systems of geographical indications protection in the world, and through compare and analysis to attain the conclusion of trademark system is the best system to protect geographical indications in our country. The main work of the article including 4 parts:The first part mainly describes the connotation as well as the relationship between the place of manufacture, and place of origin, and defining the place of origin of a product in this Article is the place indicated by TRIPS agreement, the Article also summarizes the feature of geographical indications.The second section of the Article mainly reviews that in the process of legal protection to the geographical indications from "Paris Convention" to TRIPS Agreement, the historic development process from its object connotation to the mode of protection and its extent, mainly discussed the scope of protection of geographical indication. Whether the geographical indication should include service is a heated dispute currently, up to now according to the TRIPS, we hold that the geographical indications only applies to products, not to service. The TRIPS has a special prescription about the scope of geographical indication. It stipulates two level of protection for geographical indication. The one is ordinary protection of geographical indication, the other is the additional protection for wine and spirits products geographical indication.The third section dealt with the comparative study of the different mode of legal protection of geographical indication. Currently there is three kinds of protection of geographical indication, anti-unfair competition and passing off, collective and certification marks and sui genres rights, this section has discussed the advantage and disadvantage of each form of protection.The last section dealt with the trademark mode of protection of geographical indication. This chapter concentrated on the advantage and disadvantage of use the trademark institute to protect geographical indication, and put forward suggestion of how to perfect the institute to protect geographical indication. First, analyze the contradiction between the ordinary trademark and geographical indication, and put forward how to harmonize between the two. Second, analyze the weak and strong point of using collective and certification marks to protect geographical indication. Third, put forward some suggestions to how to perfect trademark system to protect geographical indication.