Potential negative impact to cheese, meat, beverage, other food producers
Congressional leaders overseeing trade and intellectual property issues today sent a letter to the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) expressing "serious concern" about the lack of participation in a fast-moving process to adopt sweeping revisions to a global system for registering protected food names, or geographical indications (GIs). The Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) praised this powerful statement from the Chairs and Ranking Members of the U.S. House Judiciary and Ways and Means committees, and of the Senate Judiciary and Finance committees, and calls for other WIPO members to also express their concerns.
Proposed changes to the WIPO system, also known as the Lisbon Agreement, could severely impede the global use of common names for many cheeses, meats, beverages and other foods, across many more countries than are currently signed on to the agreement. In addition, these revisions could impact hundreds of thousands of small producers and consumers in developing countries. They could also affect the budgets of those that are parties to the Lisbon Agreement, since European GI holders could begin massive registration of GIs and Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs).
Revisions to the Lisbon Agreement are scheduled to be considered for approval at a conference May 11-21 in Geneva, but non-parties to the agreement - including the United States, Chile, Argentina and Australia, among many others - are currently not permitted to fully participate, even though food producers around the world could potentially be enormously impacted by the revised rules. Only the parties to the agreement - about 30 nations, roughly half of them in Europe - can fully participate in the May conference.
"We do not oppose countries entering into their own accords, as long as those agreements do not negatively affect other countries' exports and markets," said CCFN Executive Director Jaime Castaneda. "Unfortunately expansion of the Lisbon Agreement as currently proposed would certainly impact global trade between many non-Lisbon members, and would occur without the participation and approval of those nations."
The letter echoes protests made last fall by the U.S. government, and officials from Australia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and Uruguay, among other countries, aimed at permitting expansion of the Lisbon Agreement in the manner proposed. Despite those continued objections, WIPO has, to date, proceeded with the process and its preparations for the May conference.
"This exclusive approach would fly in the face of long-standing WIPO precedent on how to handle contentious IP issues," said Castaneda. "We applaud these Congressional leaders for speaking up and protecting the interests of food producers and consumers in the U.S., as well as the interests of many other food producers and consumers around the world. We urge other WIPO members to join the United States in expressing their concerns."
Read the letter to WIPO here.
The Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) is an independent, international non-profit alliance whose goal is to work with leaders in agriculture, trade and intellectual property rights to foster the adoption of high standards and model geographical indication guidelines throughout the world. Those interested in joining can find information at www.CommonFoodNames.com. 2.16.2015