Legal Readiness of Thailand for Accession to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications

Abstract

The purpose of this research were to (1) study development, concepts and theories of an accession to the Geneva Act, (2) study international registration of appellations of origin and geographical indications under the Lisbon Agreement, Geneva Act, Regulations (EU) and protection of geographical indications under the TRIPs Agreement with registration system of Thai geographical indications, (3) analyze an
international registration of appellations of origin and geographical indications under Lisbon Agreement, Geneva Act, Regulations (EU) and compare the protection of geographical indications under TRIPs Agreement with registration system of Thai geographical indications, (4) propose the appropriate guideline in the context of Thailand for legal readiness for Accession to the Geneva Act. This research is qualitative research conducted based on the documentary research and in-depth interviews.
The research reveals that the TRIPs Agreement to which Thailand becomes a State Party does not include any provision relating to international registration, but such registration is not prohibited while The European Union has enacted regulations in line with the Geneva Act and Lisbon Agreement for particular application within their jurisdiction. The European Union enacted regulations to protect appellations of origin and geographical indications under the Geneva Act and Lisbon Agreement to increase their product protections to reach a similar standard at the special level. However, Thailand, under its current law, classifies legal protection to products into two levels in accordance with the requirements in the TRIPs Agreement. For the purpose of accession to this Geneva Act, a definition “appellation of origin” should be added along the line of the said Act and, in addition, there should be a new provision empowering the Director-General to issue subordinate legislation prescribing rules on international registration. Further, the protection system should be streamlined to achieve the standards set forth in the Geneva Act. To these ends, it must be specified in the law that the registered appellations of origin and geographical indications cannot be considered to have become generic. Also, there must be new provisions on collection of fees as well as refusal, invalidation and cancellation of the protection, in agreement with the Geneva Act.