Acceso usuarios
The US way of protecting geographical indications (GIs) as collective or certification marks and the European way of treating GIs as sui generis intellectual property rights represent practices that could make a country's legislation conform to the TRIPS Agreement. However, the US trademark system and the European sui generis system are common knowledge, whereas the trademark regime in Europe and other countries with similar sui generis systems is less well known. This article shows how the different trademark systems, more specifically the systems of collective and certification marks, can be "designed" and thus shows the different roles that they will have in GI protection. This article has chosen to compare Europe and China because they both have developed the sui generis GI regime but have adopted contrasting approaches to an alternative tool, the trademark regime. Europe confines trademark use to a complementary purpose, which is reflected in the EU trademark reform of 2015 and the European Court of Justice case law. China is adapting the system to meet the needs of GI protection that the European trademark law is unwilling to cater to. A discussion of different ways of "designing" trademark systems will shed light on their multifaceted role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
