36. The representative of the European Communities said that, to date, three different proposals on a multilateral register had been tabled: by the European Communities and their member States (document IP/C/W/107/Rev.1); by Canada, Chile, Japan and the United States (document IP/C/W/133/Rev.1); and by Hungary (document IP/C/W/255). The EC proposal envisioned a system where WTO participating Members notified their geographical indications, which would be subsequently examined and could be opposed by other WTO Members within a time-limit of 18 months following the notification. Opposition prevented any legal effect in the territory of the opposing country and called for negotiations to resolve the problem causing the opposition. The proposal also attempted to tackle a few shortcomings contained in Article 23 such as the lack of uniformity in the implementation of geographical indication protection and the associated costs of registering/defending geographical indications abroad by attaching a rebuttable presumption of validity in relation to WTO-registered geographical indications in WTO participating Members. It also tackled another shortcoming, namely the lack of predictability in geographical indication protection by preventing all WTO Members from refusing protection at the national level for unopposed registered geographical indication on the basis that (i) the name did not comply with the WTO definition of a geographical indication under Article 22.1, or that in the territory, the name was either (ii) generic or (iii) homonymous. Other exceptions such as prior use or prior registered trademarks remained unaffected by the operation of registration and, thus, remained available. Hungary tabled a proposal which largely supplemented that of the EC by advancing that issues causing a country to oppose registration of a geographical indication should be solved through compulsory arbitration. It should be noted that the EC proposal, contrary to what some had suggested, did not impose any definition of wine and spirit, did not touch upon the question of oenological practices or manufacturing specifications, and did not attempt to phase out existing usurpations of geographical indications. The system was forward-looking and intended to provide tools to avoid geographical indications being usurped in the future. Existing usurpations would be left to bilateral or multilateral negotiations under Article 24.1. The proposal did not replace a system of national protection but might facilitate access to it. It did not create obligations regarding the available level of substantive protection but only obligations of a procedural nature aimed at facilitating access by producers to the already existing level of protection under Articles 22 and 23. It surely fell squarely within the TRIPS framework insofar as it only attached procedural mechanisms to facilitate existing protection. Furthermore, the phasing out of the use of certain exceptions was covered by the mandate of Article 24.1. The system was not costly or cumbersome as it did not require specific administrative structures and it was up to WTO Members to implement their provisions in the way they saw fit.
37. With regard to the paper made available by the United States (document TN/IP/W/1), he held the view that this paper, rather than being objective and neutral, reflected the US vision of the existing proposals. On the other hand, the EC table did not treat the elements of the proposals from its perspective, but only tried to juxtapose them next to each other. He wished to inform delegations that the EC could not agree with several aspects of the paper. Under the section entitled "European Union Proposal", the third bullet wrongly attributed to the EC proposal that names that were not examined and challenged by a Member must be protected by that Member. As had already been indicated, the EC proposal had as its main effect a presumption of validity in Members which had not opposed. This presumption was, however, rebuttable. In other words, domestic authorities might decide that, in light of evidence provided, the notified name should not be protected. Full protection could only be achieved via national registration. This was clearly illustrated by point D.3 of the comparative table prepared by the EC and their Member States (documents IP/C/W/259). For that reason, the EC proposal did not replace national registration. In the fifth bullet point, the United States seemed to claim that thousands of terms would be notified. The EC did not see why this would be the case under the EC proposal and not in others. In the fifth bullet point, it was also incorrect to say that reciprocal benefits would not be achieved by all Members; the EC did not see where in their proposal this had been stated. It would seem in any event that determining whether benefits were reciprocal could not be determined by the number of notified geographical indications but by their economic and trade significance. These were only a few illustrative examples. The EC would examine the paper in further detail. He further noted in the US paper under the heading "What happens when the term is not challenged?", the following answer according to the Joint Proposal: "No effect". One delegation had previously said that it would feel frustrated to learn that after months of negotiations a number of WTO Members would opt out of a voluntary multilateral register; he too felt frustrated about discussing a proposal which was meant to have no effect.
