59. The representative of Argentina said that the fact that small European producers would have to face litigation costs to defend their GI rights could not be a valid justification to give unprecedented supranational protection only to GI rights through the WTO. Such producers had the freedom to use or not to use geographical indications just as any other person had the freedom to protect their inventions or creations under various IP rights. Each type of protection could bring not only benefits but also costs and risks, including litigation costs in other countries. European producers would choose the protection based on their own commercial interests. They would generally opt for GI protection because they would get immediate benefits, such as subsidies. The difficulties mentioned by the EC delegation could not be compared to those to be faced by small producers in developing countries, who had other market access difficulties. She did not understand why problems encountered by European producers in the area of geographical indications should receive a better treatment than problems faced by producers of developing countries in other IP areas such as patents.
60. In response to the points made by the European Communities on the costs developing countries would incur with the monitoring of trademarks under the EC proposal, she wondered how many of these countries would be able to pay for such services in a developed country. Under the Madrid Protocol each WIPO member had absolute freedom to ratify it or not, a decision which would depend on their commercial interests. The EC's proposed system, on the contrary, would be mandatory for all WTO Members, whatever their interests might be in the wines and spirits sectors. The Madrid Protocol model that the European Communities claimed to have used for its proposed fee system was not relevant to the WTO context. The dynamics of trademarks were completely different from the dynamics of geographical indications. She further said that the Madrid system was administered by WIPO, with 90 per cent of its budget coming from the PCT system. Although the Lisbon Agreement, which applied to all kinds of geographical indications, did not yield any revenue, WIPO could nevertheless continue administering it, thanks to resources from other administered agreements, such as the PCT. She therefore wondered for how long the supranational administrative structure the European Communities was proposing would be sustainable.
