Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) confers rights on the owners of an intellectual creation that relate to trade issues. The agreement thus effectively protects a right and eliminates competition, with the aim of promoting innovation. Examples of such rights are patents, trademarks and licences.  

The agreement also covers the protection of geographical indications, which is of great importance for agricultural products.

Articles 22 and 23 TRIPS

Article 22 of the TRIPS agreement defines what is meant by a geographical indication and what basic protection it enjoys. It grants protection to geographical indications if it can be shown that their misuse is likely to mislead the public and consumers. States must therefore endeavour to prevent such misuse.

Article 23 of the agreement provides additional protection for geographical indications for wines and spirits. This is the highest level of protection, which does not require the risk of misleading the public to be present in order for protection to be granted.

Negotiations on this issue aim in particular at establishing a list of such products in order to improve the visibility and protection of the products referred to in Article 23. Furthermore, some WTO member countries, Switzerland included, advocate raising the level of protection for other products with a geographical indication (e.g. cheese) to the level granted by Article 23.

Level of protection of certain categories of products

The TRIPS Agreement provides for a general level of protection for all types of products in Article 22 and additional protection for wines and spirits in Article 23. This distinction is explained in the following article (pages 878–883): pdf "Geographical Indications [...]" ; – i.e. cheese, watches, chocolate and cosmetics are covered by Article 22 of the TRIPS Agreement.

Links

Legal text, see Annex 1C (in German)

Last modification 20.01.2023