51. The representative of the Czech Republic said that, as for the implementation of Article 23.4, which required the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications, her delegation supported the proposal from the European Communities, which went in the same direction favoured by her delegation. This proposal provided an appropriate balance between the costs and benefits of a registration system and the procedure for its operation was simple. One registration, say in the TRIPS Council, should suffice to provide the basis for a title of protection in all WTO Members. The registration system for appellations of origin or geographical indications for wines would create the much-needed legal framework for the protection of geographical indications in WTO Members. Another advantage of this system was that it would also enable the registration of other commodities, in accordance with Article 22, without any special modifications.
52. She also informed the Council that the Czech Republic had tabled, at the special session of the General Council of 17 June 1999, a proposal on the issue of the scope of additional protection for geographical indications. She hoped that Ministers at the Seattle Conference would agree on a clear mandate to continue and complete the work on the extension of the scope of Article 23. She recalled that Ministers in Singapore had endorsed inputs from delegations on the issue of scope to be made in the framework of the application of the provisions of the Section on geographical indications, as provided for in Article 24.2 of the TRIPS Agreement. Since then, i.e. for more than two years, the TRIPS Council had been discussing the issue of expanding the additional protection to products other than wines and spirits and an increasing number of countries had expressed interest in expanding this additional protection. Some had presented similar proposals on this subject to the General Council. However, no formal decision had been taken as yet, one of the reasons being the difference of view as to whether the existing provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and the Singapore Ministerial Declaration provided a sufficient legal basis for extending the ongoing work in the Council for TRIPS to other products. It was for this reason that the Czech Republic had tabled its proposal, which was motivated by the necessity to provide adequate standards concerning the availability, scope and use of intellectual property rights in the area of geographical indications and to contribute, in this way, to attaining the objectives of the Section on geographical indications of the TRIPS Agreement. At the Council's meeting in December 1998, as well as in her delegation's written submission (informal document No. 4486 of August 1997), a detailed position had been provided concerning the implementation of the provisions on geographical indications and the issue of the scope of additional protection under Article 23. She believed that the Section on geographical indications of the TRIPS Agreement and the Singapore Ministerial Declaration provided a sufficient legal basis for continuing this work with a view to expanding the scope of Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement to products other than wines and spirits.
