42. The representative of the United States said that, following on the interesting and helpful suggestion made at the previous meeting that the discussion on the system to be established for the registration and notification of geographical indications be separated from that concerning the list of products that would actually be covered by the system, his delegation had prepared a revision of the proposal that it had jointly tabled with Japan, so that it would only address the issue of what the appropriate system for registration and notification should be without specifying what the product coverage was. He noted that, while the proposed system would lend itself to facilitating the protection of geographical indications of any product without creating an undue burden for either the Secretariat or for Members, the United States was not prepared at the present moment to consider expansion of the scope and coverage beyond wines and spirits. With a modification of the proposal substituting the language referring to wines and spirits with language referring to covered products, there would appear to be scope for other Members to become sponsors of the proposal.
