In the past, everyone had a right to use any geographical indications. However, now, geographical indications are granted only to local registered producer groups. Geographical indications are now a type of intellectual property rights that are protec...
In the past, everyone had a right to use any geographical indications. However, now, geographical indications are granted only to local registered producer groups. Geographical indications are now a type of intellectual property rights that are protected by governments and international agencies. In the past, because of prestigious reputations of high qualities, some famous local products that were produced from some geographical areas could sell at higher prices. However, these traditional practices are quite different from geographical indications that will provide strong legal means and regulatory powers to protect its reputations. European countries such as France, Italy, and Spain have developed their own laws and regulations to protect their local products. These European laws and regulations eventually become the basis of international laws, geographical indications. In France, since 1930s, the protection of geographical indications only for wines and spirits have been in force. After the year of 1994, most agricultural products could be internationally protected as geographical indications because of WTO/TRIPs. Recently, European countries continuously have demanded other trade partners to protect their products of geographical indications through the laws equivalent to intellectual property rights. Since 1999, the Korean government started to build its regulatory and supportive government agencies and laws for geographical indications.
In Korea, not so many research studies regarding geographical indications have been performed yet. In this article, we reviewed historical developments and current protections of geographical indications in several countries. We will identify some problems of our protections and provide suggestions.