The Provisions on Geographical Indications in the TRIPS Agreement

Volume 10 Number 1 2009/p. 50-64

The Estey Centre Journal of
International Law
and Trade Policy

The Provisions on Geographical
Indications in the TRIPS Agreement

Matthijs Geuze¹

Senior Counsellor, World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva

This article provides an overview of the provisions on geographical indications
contained in the TRIPS Agreement and how they came about in the Uruguay Round of
multilateral trade negotiations, which took place from 1986 to 1994 and resulted in the
establishment of the World Trade Organization. The article underscores the difficulties
involved in arriving at international standards in this area of intellectual property by
putting the TRIPS provisions on geographical indications in their historical perspective
of more than 120 years of international negotiations and by explaining their
compromise character in the context of the single undertaking of the Uruguay Round
and the continuing discussions at the international level, notably under the Doha
Development Agenda.

Keywords: agriculture, geographical indications, intellectual property, WIPO, WTO

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