An Overview Of The Geographical Indication Protection And The Improvement Of The Geographical Indication Protection System In Our Country

Protection of Geographical Indication (GI) is an important part of IntellectualProperty Protection. With the development of international trade and the tightening ofinternational economic relationship, most of the countries have established their ownprotection system of GI that suits their country’s circumstances and meets thenation’s needs.China is a big country with a long history, and owns a lot of products that featureclear local characteristics. To protect these products with GI system would be verymeaningful for developing rural economy, increasing peasants’ income, andprotecting consumers’ rights and interests.At present, we have three government departments involved in GI identificationand protection, namely the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC),Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), andMinistry of Agriculture (MOA). However, due to the lack of communication andcoordination between these three departments, multi-protection has not been able tomake GI resources be well utilized; on the contrary, it has led to unnecessaryconfusion for GI owners and consumers. How to integrate resources of the threedepartments and introduce better coordination between them is a very urgent questionthat needs prompt solution in order to better protect GIs.This paper mainly introduces GI related terms, international legal protection andmajor GI protection modes in today’s world, reviews the evolution of China’s GIprotection system, analyses major problems with China’s three GI protectionsystems, and poses improving suggestions with the country’s circumstances takeninto consideration.