52. The representative of Singapore, making preliminary comments, said that the debate at the present meeting, in which there had been some very useful and important interventions, had shown that there were some fundamental points that the Council first needed to determine before it proceeded to the crux of the work under Article 23.4. First, one must see what exactly was the scope of Article 23.4: what did it require Members to do? Did it require Members to work only in relation to wines? Could the work be extended to spirits, on the basis of the Singapore Ministerial Declaration, and, if so, was the work in relation to spirits of the same level and nature as that for wines? Second, did Article 23.4 require Members to have a fully-fledged system as proposed by the European Communities or something different, which the systems in place under national legislation could fulfil? Another possibility might be, as the United States had mentioned, an information-type system. In that connection, one should not forget Article 24.1. He suggested that a consideration of the basic questions first would help Members to arrive at a conclusion about many of the points in the EC proposal. Once consensus could be achieved about what was exactly required to be done under Article 23.4, the points in the EC proposal would fall into place. Regarding section V.1 of the proposal, under which geographical indications were given full and indefinite protection or, as referred to in the second-last line, effective protection, he pointed out that, under trademark systems, no full and definite protection was possible if a mark had, for example, been registered, or applied for, in bad faith; in such a case, registration could be refused or cancelled. The other point concerned section V.3 of the proposal, on which some useful points had already been made. The question was whether it was legally correct that there should be two different systems, i.e. whether the legal situation in one country, which had objected to a particular registration, should be the same as the legal situation in another country in respect of the same geographical indication, or could be different.
