One year fellowship held by Xiaoyan Wang funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
The withdrawal of the UK from the EU creates great uncertainty for intellectual property right holders in the UK as well as stakeholders from the other 27 Member States. The protection of geographical indications (GIs), such as MELTON MOWBRAY PORK PIE and SCOTCH WHISKY, is a prominent issue. Currently, the other EU Member States can secure GI protection against misuse in the UK by registering a ‘protected designation of origin’ (PDO) or ‘protected geographical indication’ (PGI) throughout the EU. Brexit will remove that avenue for protection in the UK. DEFRA and UKIPO have both been considering the issue of designing a domestic regime. There is a pressing need to research, comparatively and systematically, the establishment of national legislative protection for GIs in the UK that is comparable to EU law. This project aims to inform the design of a sui generis GI system for the UK and recommend policy choices.
For more details of the project, please contact Dr Xiaoyan Wang (xwang19@qub.ac.uk).
