Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
'ROQUEFORT'. These marks are also protected as PGOs under the Euro-
pean legislation. Certification mark systems also share a number of regulatory
features with the European PGOs and PGIs regime, such as the need to
identify and publish the criteria used to decide whether a designation is
protected, as well as the control of bodies that certify whether the relevant
criteria have been met. Because certification marks can achieve the same sort of
protection as GIs, in the debates over international protection of geographical
designations a number of commentators have observed that the certification
mark system makes redundant the necessity to modify the TRIPS Agreement
to establish a multilateral register (eg Hughes, 2006 at 308-11; Torsen, 2005 at
1433).
As is mentioned above the Community Trade Marks Regulation does not
currently provide for the registration of certification marks. The Max Planck
Study on the Overall Functioning of the European Trade Mark System
,
138
under-
taken for the Commission, observed an imbalance between some national
systems and the Community Trade Marks system as regards certification
marks.
139
It proposed that this could be remedied by providing in the Com-
munity Trade Marks Regulation for the registration of certification marks
alongside collective marks.
140
The Study also indicated a need for a Community
system for certification marks which could be administered by OHIM to
provide a uniform certification standard.
141
6.118
The proposed regulation to amend the Community Trade Marks Regulation
proposes the addition to Title VIII of Section 2 headed 'European Certification
Marks'.
142
6.119
i. Definition of European Certification Mark
Proposed Art 74b(1) provides that:
6.120
… a European certification mark shall be a European trade mark which is described as
such when the mark is applied for and is capable of distinguishing goods or services
which are certified by the proprietor of the mark in respect of geographical origin,
material, mode of manufacture of goods or performance of services, quality, accuracy or
other characteristic from goods and services which are not so certified.
138
See Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law,
Study on the Overall Functioning of
the European Trade Mark System
, Munich, 15.02.2011 http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/tm/
index_en.htm.
139
Ibid, at 212.
140
Ibid.
141
Ibid.
142
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC)
No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark, COM(2013) 161 final, 2 April 2013.
