Revised Australia-EU Wine Agreement

Australia is currently finalising a revised agreement with the EU about the terms on which Australian wine will be let into Fortress Europe.

Part of the trade off for this will be that the EU will get protection for a list of geographical indications which were not protected in the 1994 agreement.

Before this happens, however, the owners of pre-existing trade mark rights in Australia get a chance to object ...

The objection must be filed by 1 November 2007 - the deadline will not be extended.

The objection must state the grounds for the objection and be accompanied by a $500 fee.

The basic ground of objection is that the GI is likely to cause confusion with the trade mark or some word or expression in it.  There are slight differences in the wording of the tests depending on whether the trade mark is registered, or is an application or not registered.

If an objection be filed, there is an evidence process leading potentially to a hearing. 

Even if the Registrar determines that the objection is made out, the Registrar may nonetheless determine that it is still reasonably to go ahead with registering the new GI.  This might be because the GI was in use in Australia before the trade mark rights arose (would that be in use in Australia as a GI?) or having regard to Australia's international obligations.

The notice is here (pdf).

The guidelines explaining the process are here (pdf).

I would love to tell you what the full list list of proposed GIs is.  They are supposed to be here (but the AWBC has shifted its website to here and, at the time of writing entering that URL into my browser generates a "Service Unavailable" response.  The EU does helpfully reveal that the agreement requires Australia to phase out the use of champagne and port within a year.

The 1994 version of the Agreement is here.