85. The representative of Canada said that the system advocated by the EC would create high and unnecessary costs. As had been raised by Japan, one set of costs that would be incurred in the establishment and maintenance of the system of registration concerned translation requirements. Indeed every Member would be obligated to examine every application in order not to waive prematurely any of the exceptions of Article 24 and the right they had to contest the names under Article 22.1. Depending on the linguistic ability of the individual examiner in each country, complete translation of the notification would be required before the task could even begin. National examination of notified names was likely also to be time-consuming and costly. In Canada for instance, a number of procedural matters had to be undertaken: for example, a file must be opened for each individual GI; the accompanying information must be translated into both official languages, English and French; and the information must be made available to the public for consultation. Given that the number of applications under the proposed EC system might grow exponentially, these costs would already be substantial. However, by adding other complexities as proposed by the EC, the costs would no doubt "sky rocket". Indeed, determining whether a term fell under the exceptions of Article 24.4 or 24.6, or determining whether the term was a GI under Article 22.1 would require serious investigations. It would not be sufficient to verify whether the term notified was already registered as a trademark. In numerous countries which protected unregistered trademarks, this would involve public consultation. In some cases, national administrations would not be capable of completing such an amount of work within the prescribed 18 months. The best solution available for these countries might well be to file automatically an opposition in order to preserve their rights and "buy some time". Finally, given that the system proposed by the EC might force Members to examine requests for GIs for which the applicant had no commercial interest in the territories undergoing examination, she wondered how a system of notification and registration crafted on the basis of the EC specifications could be considered cost-effective. More importantly, her delegation wondered how it could be considered at all in the Doha Development Round.
