Iceland has no specific legislation concerning geographical indications, but the Trademark Act and the Competition Act contain provisions that protect such indications as required by the TRIPS Agreement. In practice, geographical indications are granted extensive protection.
According to Article 14(2) of the Icelandic Trademark Act, a trademark shall not be registered if the mark is likely to deceive and in Article 36 the use of deceptive signs is prohibited.
Article 21 of the Competition Act prohibits the provision of incorrect, incomplete or misleading information by advertisement or by other means or the employment of other similar business methods possessing such characteristics, if such advertisements or methods are suited to influence the demand or supply of goods, real property, services or other objects of trade offered in the course of business operation to which the Competition Act applies.
The proposal for a new Trademark Act contains the following addition to Article 14(2): "... for example regarding the nature, quality or origin of the goods". Furthermore, in order to ensure full compliance with the requirement of Article 23 of the TRIPS Agreement, a new paragraph 14(3) concerning geographical indications for wines and spirits has been added to Article 14.
