Bardenhagen, Chris

The United States utilizes a trademark system to enable the development of Geographical Indications (GIs) for foodstuffs under the WTO Trips Article 22 provisions. While several different farmer groups, often commodity groups, have used this system successfully, GIs have not proliferated in the United States the way they have in Europe and other countries. The question arises as to what the specific barriers to adoption of GIs in the United States are. A recent project to develop a GI for a Michigan fruit industry sheds light on this. While literature on GIs points to certain benefits of the European, sui generis style intellectual property regimes, the limitations we encountered with the United State’s system for GIs may relate more to specific organizational requirements for producer groups than to an inherent problem with the use of trademark systems for GIs. Therefore, while a new, sui generis intellectual property regime could potentially help address this issue, a simpler legislative fix to the existing trademark program could provide the flexibility needed for increased adoption of GIs by farm and food producer groups.