Protecting Geographical Indications

After a five-year wait, the eagerly anticipated Geographical Indications Act came into force on June 8 2009, having originally been passed into law in 2004. This was followed in relatively quick succession by the Geographical Indications Regulations, promulgated on September 9 2009, which effectively brought the act into operation.

The requirement to provide special legal protection for geographical indications (GIs) initially arose as one of several IP rights obligations under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), when Jamaica became a WTO member on January 1 1995. However, what was then a relatively alien concept is now considered to be one of the most important forms of IP protection for Jamaica's national brand.