Legal Protection Of Geographical Indications

The legal protection of geographical indications in my country started relatively late,and there are certain problems in both the legislative level and judicial practice.At the legislative level,it not only absorbed the U.S.geographical indication trademark law protection legislative model,but also absorbed the EU’s special protection legislation model for geographical indications.At the institutional arrangement level,three sets of parallel geographical indication protection operation methods appeared,lacking an effective communication mode,and the right Overlapping increases the burden on right holders,resulting in waste of resources,incomplete rights review system,lack of scientific and reasonable geographical indication management system,incomplete supervision system,and failure to establish reasonable objection procedures and infringement remedies.At the judicial level,in the determination of infringement,the judicial practice regarding the application of the "confusion" or "misidentification" standard is not unified.For example,the "confusion" standard was used in the West Lake Longjing case,while the "misidentification" was used in the "Akesu" cases.Standards: Regarding the proper use of geographical indication trademarks,there are different opinions on whether the use of geographical indication certification marks should be licensed by trademark control organizations.The current court holds that as long as the conditions for the use of geographical indications are met,legitimate use can be made.The current academic circles generally believe that a special protection law for geographical indications should be introduced to protect geographical indications.This article believes that the current "dual-track" geographical indication protection mode should be improved,and geographical indications should be divided into PDO and PGI for hierarchical protection,and the geographical indication management system should be improved,Clarify the scope of protection of rights,establish protection agencies,improve the procedures for the review and registration of geographical indications.In judicial practice,the standard for identification of infringement should be unified,and the misidentification of source should not only be used as the identification standard,but also the misidentification of quality should be achieved;The proper use of geographical indications,due to the strict requirements of geographical indications on the place of origin and craftsmanship and the attributes of collective rights,only proves that they meet the requirements of origin and quality without the permission of the trademark control organization,which is not conducive to the guarantee of quality,and even damages the geographical indications.Reputation,so the proper use of geographical indication certification trademarks should follow the "application-permission" procedure,and for the proper use of common geographical names,the user must require non-trademark use and subjective goodwill.