Commission proposes framework to also protect industrial products
The Commission has proposed for the first time a framework to protect the intellectual property of craft and industrial products which are the result of the originality and authenticity of traditional regional practices. Drawing on the success of the Geographical Indications (GI) system for wines, spirits and other agricultural products, the Commission intends to enable producers to protect, with the proposal for a regulation, the craft and industrial products associated with their regions and traditional skills, both in Europe and in the world. The Regulation, which provides for EU-wide protection of geographical indications, will allow consumers to more easily recognise the quality of these products and to make more informed choices, and will help promote, attracting and maintaining skills and jobs in Europe’s regions, contributing to their economic development. The proposal would also ensure that craft and industrial products are placed on an equal footing with the protected geographical indications already existing in the agricultural sector.
In particular, the proposed regulation aims to:
- to establish EU-wide protection for GIs relating to craft and industrial products in order to help producers protect and enforce intellectual property rights for their products throughout the EU. The new regulation will also facilitate action against counterfeit products, including those sold online, and remedy the current problems arising from the existence of fragmented and partial national protections;
- to allow simple and cost-efficient registration of GIs for artisanal and industrial products by establishing a two-tier application procedure, which will require producers to submit applications for GI to the designated authorities of the Member States, which will in turn transmit them to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) applications deemed appropriate for further evaluation and approval. Member States which do not have a national evaluation procedure will also have the possibility to submit the application directly to the EUIPO. The proposal offers producers the additional possibility of submitting a self-declaration of conformity of products to the production specifications, in order to make the system more streamlined and less expensive;
- to allow full compatibility with the international protection of GIs, enabling artisanal and registered industrial GI producers to protect their products in all countries that are signatories to the Geneva Act on Designations of Origin and Geographical Indications of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which the EU joined in November 2019 and which concerns craft and industrial GIs. At the same time, it will be possible to protect the corresponding GIs of third countries within the EU;
- to support the development of rural and other regions of Europe by encouraging producers, in particular SMEs, to invest in genuine new products and to create niche markets. The proposed regulation will also help to preserve unique competences that could otherwise disappear, especially in the rural and less developed regions of Europe. The regions would benefit from the reputation of the new GIs, which can help attract tourists and create new highly skilled jobs in the regions, while stimulating their economic recovery.