The Study Of The Legal Protective System Of Geographical Indications

With our Chinese entry into WTO, geographical indications, as one of hot issues about intellectual property right in WTO's new round of multilateral trade negotiations, have attracted much attention all over the world according to the international convention. Nowadays, many countries employ geographical indications to protect their products in the trade of import and export, so that a lot of special local products and famous-brand products have obtained geographical indications as a protective "shield". However, relative problems are brought about, such as how to define geographical indications, what is the difference between geographical indications and other related indications and what is the current condition of the protection of our Chinese geographical indications.A series of studies shows that there are plenty of problems with the protectiove system of our Chinese geographical indications. It is a hundred year since the international community began to attach importance to the protection of geographical indications and there are also lots of successful examples in the foreign legislation, so we should use international conventions and legislations for reference to establish the protective system of our Chinese geographical indications. This process is a process of the innovation of system as well as a process of comparison and selection. The thesis attempts to put forward strategies for improving the protective system of our Chinese geographical indications by means of combing the analysis of the protection of geographical indications of foreign countries with the actual condition of our country.The thesis is divided into four parts except Introduction and Conclusion. The first part is a survey of geographical indications. This part expounds geographical indications from three aspects: their definition and related concepts, legal characteristic and the difference between indications and brands. Geographical indications develop from the indication of origin of production and the name of original producing places. In China, two sets of system are used to protect geographical indications, which to some extent hinder the normal development of geographical indications.The second part discusses the international regulations of geographical indications' protection. In this part, an analysis about the international protection of geographical indications is made from two main aspects: the regulations of WTO's conventions and the regulations of TRIPS with the purpose of revealing the significance of the protection of geographical indications.The third part distinguishes between EU's protective system of geographical indications and USA's. This part, based on the contrast between two main protective system in the world, aims to seek a suitable and innovative protective system of geographical indications in China by making use of French protective mode and USA'sThe fourth part discusses strategies for improving our protective system as well as the status quo of the protection of geographical indications in China. This part analyzes the significance of geographical indications' protection in the trade of our agricultural products, the status quo of our protective system and strategies for improving this system. With the proceeding of the integration of global economy, geographical indications play a significant role in the economy. Geographical indications usually represent products of high quality and reputation. Besides, they are stamped with cultural characteristics of one country, area and local region. Their role in the course of strengthening products' competitiveness becomes more and more important. This paper tries to analyze the status quo of our protective system of geographical indications, find out the existing problems with our protective system and seek a suitable solution in order to adapt our protective system to the international condition and to make contributions to the economic construction of our country.