TRUSTICERT
Scientific and regulatory consultancy in the field of: - vaping - cosmetics - medical devices - food supplements - novel food
ID: 950787626232-76
Lobbying Activity
Response to Geographical indication protection at EU level for non-agricultural products
18 Jan 2021
Taken into account that :
- the Commission Communication of 10 March 2020 ‘A New Industrial Strategy for Europe’ announces an Intellectual Property (IP) action plan to assess the need to upgrade the legal framework, to ensure a smart use of IP, and to better fight IP theft, as smart IP policies are essential to help companies to grow, to create jobs and to protect and develop what makes them unique and competitive;
- the Commission Communication of 10 March 2020 ‘An SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe’ announcing that the upcoming IP action plan will propose measures to make the IP system more effective for SMEs, through actions to simplify IP registration procedures (e.g. reforming EU legislation on industrial designs), to improve access to strategic IP advice (e.g. by making such advice available in all EU-level R&D funding), and to facilitate the use of IP as a lever to gain access to finance;
- the Council welcomes the entry into force, on 26th February 2020, of the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications (GIs), recognising the need to strengthen GI protection systems in the EU; taking note of the resolution of the European Parliament of 6 October 2015; all on these premises, the Council stands ready to consider the introduction of a system for sui generis protection of non-agricultural products, on the basis of a thorough impact assessment of its potential costs and benefits.
Globalization in recent decades has led to the global spread of places (such as airports) and objects (such as industrial sweaters) that are almost identical in every part of the world. With the advancement of this homogeneity, the uniqueness of traditional productions and the added value of products made with care and experience by local artisans and specialized companies are getting lost at every stage; the culture of traditional and territory-driven objects is getting lost both in makers and final users.. Because of this homologation brought by the copy-paste technology we already speak of non-places (cit. Marc Augè, 1992) but likewise we could speak of non-objects. Objects to which the citizen no longer become attached and which increasingly go to feed the landfills following the unsustainable rules of the linear economy model.
Therefore, we are pleased to see that the Commission and the Council of Europe have decided to introduce regulations for the protection of the intellectual property of non-agricultural geographical indications.
A valuable commitment of the European authorities should aim to deliver to manufacturers of all sizes new concrete tools for the enhancement of geographic productions, including non-agricultural ones. The new regulatory framework should take into account the new priorities of sustainable development in all its directions and the most recent and promising technologies such as blockchain, the use of remote sensing data, oracles and artificial intelligence that can help in the development, control and distribution of value to the internal supply chains and in the control of the compliance.
Manufacturers are subject to voluntary and mandatory certification costs, with heavy pressure for the smaller. The incentive to develop a technology driven network of collaborations between authorities, private control bodies and even citizens could make the control and verification of product compliance activities more efficient without burdening the resources of producers or individual actors in the supply-chain.
TRUSTICERT is an independent innovative SME acting as a compliance certification body. It is specialised in data mining with the purpose to verify and validate the truthfulness of claims and assertions of products, companies and organizations.
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