지리적표시보호법제에 관한 연구

This article studies the legal system of Geographical Indications(GIs) of international and national systems. GI is still new and strange area as an intellectual property in most of the world. There are only 3 articles in TRIPS to protect GI as a minimum standard. First, general protection to any commercial products, second, additional protection especially on wine and spirits, and the last, exceptions on GIs protection and future development of the system. TRIPs hands over details for protection of GIs to every member nation's national legislations. GIs are defined as the indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member…where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin. They were designed to protect consumers from being misled, producers and traders from being misappropriated. In addition, they protect agriculture and rural society and culture. Comparing GIs with trademarks, in spite of many similarities in common, GIs need certain place-products connection and political and social policies more than those similarities. However, most of countries(including korea) have GIs protected in the trademark system by regionally based collective marks. Thus there seems to be conflicts when a GI seeks to be protected where there is a prior registered trademark. This article studies the relationship between GIs in the form of regionally based collective marks and trademarks, and then explains the development of international GIs system. Finally, it shows the Korean legal system to protect GIs through regionally based collective marks in the Trademark Act and the Agricultural products Quality Control Act.