WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/IP/18 
9 June 2008 
 
 (08-2700) 
Council for Trade-Related Aspects 
of Intellectual Property Rights Special Session  
 
  
MULTILATERAL SYSTEM OF NOTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF 
GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS FOR WINES AND SPIRITS 
 
Report by the Chairman
 
  1. This report on the negotiations on the establis hment of a multilateral system of notification 
and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits is submitted on my own 
responsibility and is without prejudice to the position  of any delegation and to the outcome of the 
negotiations. 
2. The mandate of the Special Session is set out in the first sentence of paragraph 18 of the Doha 
Ministerial Declaration, which reads as follows: 
"With a view to completing the work starte d in the Council for Trade-Related Aspects 
of Intellectual Property Rights (Council for TRIPS) on the implementation of 
Article 23.4, we agree to negotiate the establishment of a multilateral system of 
notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits by the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference." 
The mandate refers to the work already under way in the Council for TRIPS on the basis of  
Article 23.4 of the TRIPS Agreement, which provides that: 
 
"[i]n order to facilitate the protection of geographical indications for wines, negotiations shall be undertaken in the Council for TRIPS concerning the 
establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines eligible for protection in those Members participating in the system." 
In the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, Minister s took note of a progress report on the negotiations 
in the Special Session and agreed to intensify them  in order to complete them within the overall 
time-frame for the conclusion of the negotiations that were foreseen in the Doha Ministerial 
Declaration (WT/MIN(05)/DEC, paragraph 29).  
3. As reported on previous occasions, three formal proposals have been tabled.  Document 
TN/IP/W/12 sets out side by side the elements of th e three proposals tabled that, in the view of the 
proponents of each proposal, are relevant to the ma ndate of the Special Session:  Hong Kong, China's 
proposal, contained in Annex A of TN/IP/W/8;  th e Joint Proposal of Argentina, Australia, Canada, 
Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, 
New Zealand, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Chinese Taipei and the United States ("Joint Proposal Group") in 
TN/IP/W/10 and Addenda 1, 2 and 3;  and the Eu ropean Communities' proposal, contained in the 
Annex set out in TN/IP/W/11.  More recently the European Communities has shared with the 
participants in the Special Session new thinking whic h it has presented as an effort to narrow the gap;  TN/IP/18 
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  the references to the position of the European Communities in this report are based on this new 
thinking.  A detailed compilation, prepared by the Secretariat, of the points raised and views 
expressed on the proposals can be found in docum ent TN/IP/W/12/Add.1 and Add.1/Corr.1 of 
May 2007.
1 
4. The elements of a registration system that have been considered in the work can be put into 
three categories: 
 (a) First, there are the two key issues of participation and the consequences/legal effects 
of registrations, where there continue to be  fundamental differences, even if there has 
been some movement in the past months.  In regard to these elements, I reproduce 
below the position of participants as re flected in the proposals submitted and 
discussions in the Special Session. 
  (b) There is a second category of elements on which a fair amount of detailed work has 
been done.  These are the areas of notification and registration.  While most of this work is not all that recent and further work is clearly required, in particular because 
positions on these matters are linked to the treatment of participation and 
consequences/legal effects, my tentative appreciation of the points of convergence 
and divergence can be found below. 
  (c) Third, there are a number of other elem ents which depend substantially on the key 
policy choices to be made, in particular on the questions of participation and 
consequences/legal effects, and which have thus been less fully discussed so far.  
These include such matters as:  fees, costs, and administrative burdens, particularly as 
they impact on developing and least deve loped country Members, and special and 
differential treatment; as well as the duration of registrations and procedures for their 
modification and withdrawal;  arrangements for review;  and contact points.  These 
are points that need further discussion. 
 5. No agreement has yet been reached on the lega l form of the eventual outcome and on the 
institutional arrangements for its management and servi cing.  On the former question, the suggestions 
on the table include a TRIPS Council decision and th e addition of an annex to the TRIPS Agreement 
through an amendment to it.  On the latter questi on, delegations have not excluded the possibility of 
inviting the WIPO secretariat to play a role. 
6. There are different views on whether the work of  the Special Session should be addressed in 
the context of the modalities decision.   Some Members believe that the issue of the GI register should 
be part of the horizontal process in order to have modality texts that reflect Ministerial agreement on 
the key parameters for negotiating a final draft lega l text as part of the Single Undertaking.  Some 
other Members believe that no further guidance is necessary since the existing mandate is sufficiently 
clear and technical work can and should be pursue d intensively on this basis in order to fulfil the 
Doha mandate to which they remain committed. 
7. This report does not describe the range of views that have been expressed on issues of linkage 
between work in the Special Session and work on the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and 
the Convention on Biological Diversity and on GI ex tension, including in regard to the coverage of 
the GI register and in regard to procedural pa rallelism between these three TRIPS issues.  This is 
because the issues of GI extension and TRIPS/CBD relate to matters whic h go beyond the mandate of 
the Special Session, including its limitation to GIs for wines and spirits. 
                                                     
 
1 A record of the most recent expression of the pos itions and views of Members will be circulated in 
document TN/IP/M/19 (minutes of the Special Session's meeting of 29 April 2008).  TN/IP/18 
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  Participation 
 
8. The Joint Proposal  Group has proposed: 
"In accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement, participation 
in the System established by the Decision is strictly voluntary, and no Member shall 
be required to participate. 
In order to participate in the System, a Me mber shall make a written notification to 
the WTO Secretariat of its intention to participate." 
9. The European Communities has proposed: 
"In accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement, the system is 
multilateral, that is applicable to all WTO Members. 
Participating Members are Members above  a certain share in world trade." 
Under the EC approach, all WTO Members would be entitled to submit no tifications under the 
system.  
10. Hong Kong, China has proposed: 
"Participation in the system is voluntary which means that: (a) Members should be free to participate and notify GIs protected in their 
territories. 
 (b) The obligation to give legal effect to  registrations under the system will only be 
binding upon Members choosing to participate in the system."
 
 
Hong Kong, China has also proposed that "the questi on of scope of participa tion should be revisited 
as part of the review" of the notification and regist ration system that it is proposing should be held 
"after [four] years from establishment of the system". 
 
11. The range of positions taken in regard to whethe r and, if so, in what way registration should 
have consequences/legal effects in non-participating Members is describ ed in paragraphs 25-28 of this 
report. 
Notification 
 
12. On the notification by Members of GIs for inclusion in the register, earlier discussions 
indicated a fair measure of common ground on certain aspects, but significant remaining differences on some others.  With regard to the content of notifications, there seemed to be significant common 
ground among Members that the notifying Member would be required to: 
 (a) specify the name of the notifying Member; 
 
 (b) specify whether the good for which the geographical indication is used is a wine or a 
spirit; 
  (c) identify the geographical indication as it appears on or is protected for the wine or 
spirit in the notifying Member's territory; TN/IP/18 
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 (d) where the geographical indication is in characters other than Latin characters, include 
a transliteration into Latin characters using the phonetics of the language in which the 
notification is made; 
 
 (e) specify the territory of the notifying Member, or the region or locality in that 
territory, from which the wine or spirit must originate in order to be eligible in that 
Member to be identified by the geographical indication; 
  (f) include, where available, the date on wh ich the geographical indication first received 
protection in the notifying Member and, if applicable, any date for the expiration of 
the protection currently accorded. 
 On point (d) there were different views as to whethe r it should be specified that transliterations would 
be for information purposes only, and on point (f) whether the inclusion of the date of first protection 
should be obligatory or voluntary. 
 13. There were different views on whether notifyi ng Members should be required to identify how 
the geographical indication is protected in the territory of the notifying Member including, as appropriate, the legal instrument that forms the ba sis of such protection;  or, as suggested in one 
proposal, as an optional alternative, by providi ng a statement executed under seal affirming the 
protection of the geographical indication in the notifying country.  It might also be noted that there 
were outstanding differences on whether or not th ere should be an explicit requirement that a 
notifying Member only notify GIs which, in its territory, meet the definition of a geographical indication specified in paragraph 1 of Article 22 of  the TRIPS Agreement and are protected and have 
not fallen into disuse. 
14. Significant differences also remain on the treatme nt of translations in notifications.  These 
include whether the notifying Member should provide  any available translation of the geographical 
indication into the language in which the notifi cation is made in cases where the language in which 
the geographical indication appears on the wine or sp irit in the notifying Member is not that language; 
whether the notifying Member should be expl icitly given the option of providing suggested 
translations of the geographical indication into ot her languages;  and whether, if provisions on these 
matters are included, it should be made clear th at this would be for information purposes only. 
15. Other points which remain to be settled are whether notifications: 
 (a) should, on a mandatory or voluntary basis, include information identifying the 
producers of the wine or spirit entitled to use the geographical indication in the notifying Member and/or the owner of  the geographical indication;  and 
 
 (b) may include other information that the no tifying Member considers may be useful in 
facilitating protection of the geographical indication, such as: 
 
 (i) details of the quality, reputation or  other characteristics of the wine or 
spirit essentially attributable to its geographical origin; 
 
 (ii) for information purposes only, any bilateral, regional and/or 
multilateral agreement under which the geographical indication is 
protected. 
  TN/IP/18 
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  16. It is my impression that there is a large measure of common ground among Members 
regarding the following issues: 
 (a) the notification shall be made in an official WTO language; 
  (b) the notification, with the exception of the geographical indication itself, shall be 
translated by the administering body into the other official WTO languages; 
  (c) the notifications shall be made in a sta ndard format to be adopted by the Council for 
TRIPS prior to the entry into operation of th e system, which shall be such as to limit 
notifications, wherever possible, to no longer than two pages, not counting any 
attached or cross-referenced texts. 
 
Registration 
 
17. Regarding the issue of registration of geographi cal indications in the system it is my sense 
that there is significant common ground among Members on the following elements: 
 (a) following receipt of a notification of a geographical indication, the administering 
body shall register the notified geographical indication on the register of geographical 
indications for wines and spirits; 
  (b) the registration of the notified geographical  indication on the register shall consist of 
the recording on the register of the information provided in the notification;  and 
  (c) the administering body shall notify al l WTO Members of the registration of each 
notified geographical indication. 
 
18. Members also seem to agree that the register  shall take the form of a searchable on-line 
database, available in the thr ee WTO languages and accessible free of charge to all WTO Members 
and the public, and that it sha ll provide a means of access to the original notification of each 
geographical indication as made by the notifying Member. 
19. Different views have been expressed on a pro posal that has been made for a formality 
examination of each notification by the administ ering body prior to its entry on the register. 
20. The view has been expressed that the appr opriateness of a system providing for the 
registration of geographical indications notifie d by Members without a prior opportunity for 
opposition or reservation by other Members in the light  of national examination by them of those GIs 
was dependent on the consequences/legal eff ects that such registration would have. 
Consequences/Legal Effects of Registrations 
 
In participating Members 
 
21. The Joint Proposal Group has proposed: 
"Each Participating Member commits to ensure that its procedures include the 
provision to consult the Database when ma king decisions regarding registration and 
protection of trademarks and geographical  indications for wines and spirits in 
accordance with its domestic law." TN/IP/18 
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  22. The European Communities has proposed: 
"Commitment to consult the Register wh en making decisions on registration and 
protection of trademarks and GIs in accordance with domestic law. 
Rebuttable presumptions that the notified GI:  (i) is a GI in accordance with the definition in Article 22.1 TRIPS; 
(ii) is not a generic (Article 24.6 TRIPS); 
(iii) does not falsely represent to th e public the true origin of the 
goods (Article 22.4 TRIPS)." 
23. Hong Kong, China has proposed: 
"Registration of an indication on the Register shall be admitted as prima facie 
evidence to prove: 
(a) ownership of the indication; (b) that the indication satisfies the definition in Article 22.1 of 
the TRIPS Agreement as a geographical indication;  and 
(c) that the indication is protected in the country of origin (i.e. 
Article 24.9 of the TRIPS Agreement does not apply) 
in any domestic courts, tribunals or ad ministrative bodies of the Participating 
Members in any judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative proceedings related to the 
geographical indication.  The issues will be deemed to have been proven unless evidence to the contrary is produced by  the other party to the proceedings." 
24. The position has also been taken that there shoul d be no national legal effects consequent on 
the registration of GIs in the register. 
In non-participating Members 
 
25. The Joint Proposal Group has proposed: 
"Members who choose not to participate are encouraged, but are not obliged, to 
consult the Database in making decisi ons under their domestic law involving 
registration or protection of trademarks and geographical indications for wines and 
spirits." 
26. The European Communities has proposed: 
"Commitment to consult the Register when  making decisions on the registration and 
protection of trademarks and GIs in accordance with domestic law." 
27. Under the Hong Kong, China proposal there w ould be no legal effects for non-participating 
countries.  TN/IP/18 
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  28. The following positions have also been taken: 
 - the legal effects proposed by the Eur opean Communities for participating Members 
should apply also in non-participating Members; 
  - there should be no national legal effects c onsequent on the registration of GIs in the 
register. 
 
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