69. The representative of Chile said his delegation had appreciated the informal consultations held prior to this meeting and welcomed the Chairman's sub-questions, which he believed would help focus on the technical issues in these negotiations. For the process to move forward, his delegation would give preliminary replies pending further comments to be received from his capital.
70. With regard to the first sub-question, the Chilean system had two separate registers under its intellectual property law, one for trademarks and one for geographical indications. The latter covered all types of products, and was open to both local and foreign geographical indications. The levels of protection granted by Chilean law to the various products identified by geographical indications was consistent with the TRIPS Agreement, in other words there was an additional level of protection for geographical indications for wines and spirits.
71. He would not dwell on the specific requirements for each procedure, but in general terms intellectual property law in Chile provided for trademarks and geographical indications specific and different conditions for registrability and opposition procedures, where third parties could claim their rights and submit to the Institute of Intellectual Property any type of information to substantiate their rights. However, as was the case in other countries, Chilean law contained no obligation to consult a specific source of information, but rather established criteria which the examiner of the Institute had to follow in order to determine what the relevant information was in each case. Even when there was no legal obligation to consult a specific source of information, obviously all of the binding standards, including international treaties signed by Chile which contained provisions on GIs, were taken into consideration in the register process.
72. With regard to the sanctions for not consulting information, he said that a decision on the registration or rejection of a trademark GI application taken by the national intellectual property institute could be appealed before the intellectual property court and further before the Supreme Court of Justice if substantive rights had been violated in that process.
