Trump administration: EU’s GI agenda ‘highly concerning’

Donald Trump’s administration has released a new report that claims the EU’s agenda for geographical indications “remains highly concerning” since it “undermines” trademarks and other intellectual property rights of US producers.

Donald Trump’s government will “oppose efforts to extend the protection given to GIs for wines and spirits to other products”

The 2017 Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property, published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, states that EU-specified GIs that use “place names and identify products as having a particular quality, reputation, or other characteristic” impose trade “barriers” to American-made goods.

The report outlines a number of ways GIs “trouble” the US government, namely the extent to which they “impair” the scope of trademark protection and “impact” access of US-made products in the EU.

It argues that the EU “asks trading partners to prevent all producers other than those EU producers in certain EU regions, from using certain product names” even though “they are the common names for products, and the products are produced in countries around the world”.

As such, the US “runs a significant deficit in food and agricultural trade with the EU”.

“In the case of cheese, for example, where many EU products enjoy GI protection under the EU GI system, the EU exports nearly US$1 billion of cheese to the United States each year; the United States exports only about US$6 million to the EU,” the report states.

“Conversely, EU agricultural producers exporting to the United States are doing quite well, benefiting considerably from effective trademark protection provided in the United States and, notably, in the absence of an EU-style GI system.”

Unlike Europe, the US protects GIs as trademarks, and the same governmental authority processes applications for both trademarks and GIs. The US also does not protect terms or signs that are seen to be “generic” for goods or services.

“Despite these troubling aspects of its GI system, the EU continues to seek to expand its harmful GI system within its territory and beyond,” the report continues. “Within its borders, the EU is enlarging its system beyond agricultural products and foodstuffs, to encompass non-agricultural products, including apparel, ceramics, glass, handicrafts, manufactured goods, minerals, salts, stones, and textiles.

“Beyond its borders, the EU has sought to advance its agenda through bilateral trade agreements, which impose the negative impacts of the EU GI system on market access and trademark protection in third countries, including through exchanges of lists of terms that receive automatic protection as GIs without sufficient transparency or due process.”

As a result of the EU’s “aggressive promotion” of its GI policies, the US will continue its “intensive engagement in promoting and protecting” access to foreign markets for US-made products that are trademarked or identified by common names.

In addition to a number of other objectives, the US will “oppose efforts to extend the protection given to GIs for wines and spirits to other products”.

For a more in-depth look at the current issues impacting geographical indications for spirits, see the Big Story in the May 2017 edition of The Spirits Business magazine, out soon.