Article 23 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is about the supplementary protection of geographical indications for wines and liquors.
Specifically, it involves four aspects:
① Members should stop using geographical indications to indicate wines and liquors that do not originate from the place indicated by the indication, even if the true origin of the goods is indicated at the same time, even if the geographical indication uses translated text, or even if it is accompanied by a certain “kind”, a certain “type”, a certain “style”, a certain “class”, or the same expression.
② For trademarks of wines and liquors that do not meet the requirements of geographical indications and are not the place of origin of the wine, members should reject or cancel the registration of the trademark ex officio, or reject or cancel the registration of the trademark at the request of a party’s interested party.
③ If many wine geographical indications use geographical indications of polyphones and homographs, protection should apply to each mark. Members should determine the practical conditions for distinguishing between the relevant homophones and homographs geographical indications while taking into account ensuring equal treatment for the relevant producers and not misleading consumers.
④ In order to facilitate the protection of wine geographical indications, negotiations should be held at the “Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights” to establish a multilateral system for the notification and registration of wine geographical indications, so that members joining the system can use the system in protecting geographical indications.