8. The representative of the European Communities, commenting on the Hong Kong, China proposal regarding the duration of protection, said that, since the TRIPS Agreement was silent as to the duration of GI protection, his delegation wondered whether such a time-limit would be in conformity with the Agreement.
9. He further said that, because under the EC proposal even non-participating Members would have some legal obligations, providing for the termination of participation would not fit in the concept of a "multilateral system" as understood by the European Communities.
10. Responding to Argentina regarding the operation of Article 24.9 of the TRIPS Agreement as set out in paragraph 8.1 of the EC proposal, he said that, assuming that the EC proposal was annexed to the TRIPS Agreement, there would be a violation of the Agreement if a Member did not make a notification of withdrawal under that provision. There would be an obligation for each Member to notify that a geographical indication had ceased to be protected in that Member. The effects of this withdrawal for producers from third countries would depend on each country. He said that it was not unusual in intellectual property law that, for example, a trademark lapsed after some time, and that countries dealt with this situation in different ways. Likewise, it would be for each WTO Member's legal system to decide what would happen in a similar situation regarding geographical indications. In particular, this would depend on how Members had implemented Article 24.9 of the TRIPS Agreement, which allowed, but did not oblige, them not to protect a geographical indication that was not protected in the country of origin. Members were therefore still free to continue protecting that particular geographical indication even if it was no longer protected in the country of origin. For these reasons it was difficult to give a definitive answer to the question posed by Argentina because the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement were fairly flexible as far as implementation was concerned.
11. He further said that, while it was true that the EC proposal did not contain any language regarding withdrawals from the system, his delegation would be ready to suggest some language. In any event, he wanted to state for the record that for his delegation, withdrawing from the system would only mean changing from the status of a participating Member to a non-participating Member, unless that Member became a LDC and hence was under the benefit of the extended transition period, or if it left the WTO.
