Actas - Consejo de los ADPIC - Ver detalles de la intervención/declaración

Ambassador Federico A. González (Paraguay) (24-25 October) and Mr. Martin Glass (Hong Kong, China) (17 November)
C TRANSITIONAL REVIEW UNDER SECTION 18 OF THE PROTOCOL ON THE ACCESSION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF China
76. The representative of Mexico said that his delegation wished to express some concerns relating to paragraphs 256 and 342 of the Report of the Working Party on the accession of China. He said that while China had made significant progress in the area of IPRs by having put in place national plans and strategies, there remained concerns about the conformity of China's legislation with its TRIPS obligations, specifically with Articles 22, 23 and 24 of the TRIPS Agreement. The lack of protection for geographical indications and denominations of origin gave rise to serious concerns for Mexico as this could affect Mexican products protected by appellations of origin such as, for example, TEQUILA and MEZCAL. 77. He said that his delegation had detected counterfeit beverages that were not TEQUILA and which falsely indicated Mexico as their origin. A further case was the counterfeiting of the trademark "CORONA", which had still not been settled. "CERONO", a Mexican beer, was produced by Beijing Cerono Trade Limited Company, using bottles that were labelled with logos, lettering, colours and graphics identical to those used for the Mexican beverage. 78. In other WTO fora, his delegation had also expressed its concern over China's lack of compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding which had been signed by Mexico as part of China's WTO accession process. In that Memorandum China had committed to protect the denominations of origin of TEQUILA and MEZCAL, and to limit their use to products that originated from Mexico or from specific regions of the country and which had been manufactured under the rules applicable to these beverages. China had recently notified to the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures a draft regulation which reduced the maximum level of methanol for alcoholic beverages in a category which would prevent the commercialization of some types of TEQUILA and MEZCAL in the Chinese market. His delegation believed that this would violate obligations which China had assumed upon accession with regard to these two Mexican products.
IP/C/M/67