The TRIPS Agreement (for trade-related intellectual property rights) provides for the general protection of geographical indications (GIs) of product origin, including for example the special protection of wines and spirits and for the creation of a multilateral register for wines. The African Group of countries has been in the forefront of countries agitating in the World Trade Organization TRIPS Council for the extension of this special protection and of the multilateral register to industries which are of interest to developing countries, primarily agriculture. The so-called "extension question" is the central feature of the Doha Development Agenda at both the WTO and World Intellectual Property Organization. This book provides some empirical evidence and applied legal and economic reasoning to this debate. It provides both a general review of the key issues and a series of case studies from six Anglophone and four Francophone countries in Africa. These focus on major agricultural commodities such as coffee, cotton, cocoa and tea, as well as more specific and local products such as Argan oil and Oku white honey.

• EXTENDING THE PROTECTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS Case Studies of Agriculture Products in Africa 5
• Copyright 6
• Contents 7
• List of Contributors 9
• Foreword 12
• Introduction 15
• Part I The Policy Context 19
  • 1 Geographical Indications and TRIPS 21
  • 2 Setting up a GI: Requirements and Difficulties at the Producer Level 49
  • 3 Legal Infrastructure for the Protection of GIs 65
  • 4 Geographical Indications and Economic Development 98
  • 5 Assessing the Economic Impact of GI Protection 115
  • 6 Geographical Indications, Traditional Knowledge, Expressions of Culture and the Protection of Cultural Products in Africa 134
• Part II Case Studies 149
  • 7 Cameroon: Oku White Honey 151