Annual USTR Report Outlines Ongoing Concerns With EU’s GI Agenda

The European Union’s (EU) geographical indications (GI) agenda “remains highly concerning because it significantly undermines protection of trademarks held by US producers and imposes barriers on market access for US-made goods that rely on the use of common names, such as parmesan or feta,” according to the 2024 “Special 301” Report released Thursday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).

The “Special 301” report is an annual review of the global state of intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement. USTR reviewed more than 100 trading partners for this year’s report.

The EU GI system “raises concerns regarding the extent to which it impairs the scope of trademark protection, including exclusive rights in registered trademarks that pre-date the protection of a GI,” the report stated. The EU GI system “undermines trademark protection and may result in consumer confusion to the extent that it permits the registration and protection of GIs that are confusingly similar to prior trademarks.”

Also, the EU geographical indications system and strategy adversely impact access for US and other producers in the EU market and other markets by granting protection to terms that are considered in those markets to be the common name for products, the report continued.

The EU has granted GI protection to thousands of terms that now only certain EU producers can use in the EU market, and many of these producers then block the use of any term that even “evokes” a GI, the report explained.

However, many EU member countries, such as Denmark and France, still produce products that are claimed as GIs of other European countries, such as feta, and export these products outside of the EU using the protected GIs as the common name of the products.

As part of its trade agreement negotiations, the EU pressures trading partners to prevent any producer, except from those in certain EU regions, from using certain product names, such as parmesan, asiago, or feta. This is despite the fact that these terms are the common names for products produced in countries around the world, precisely because of Europe’s role in globalization over many years, the report said.

In the EU and other markets that have protected EU GIs within their own GI systems, US producers and traders either are effectively blocked from those markets or must adopt burdensome workarounds. They either cannot use the descriptors at all, or anything even evoking them, in the market or at best may sell their products only as “fontina-like,” “gorgonzola-kind,” “asiago-style,” or “imitation feta.”

“This is costly, unnecessary, and can reduce consumer demand for the non-EU products, as well as reduce consumer choice and cause consumer confusion,” the report stated.

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 continued.

In response to the EU’s aggressive promotion of its exclusionary GI policies, the US continues its intensive engagement in promoting and protecting access to foreign markets for US exporters of products that are identified by common names or otherwise marketed under previously registered trademarks, the report said.

The US is advancing these objectives through its trade agreements, as well as in international fora.

In addition to these negotiations, the US is engaging bilaterally to ....

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