Throughout the history of commerce, product reputation has fueled economic growth. Product reputation boosts consumer confidence, ensures a consumer’s positive commercial experience, and rewards producers for superior craftsmanship. Yet, a product’s quality reputation is not inherent or easy to obtain, it consists of intangible characteristics that take substantial time and resources to develop. Intellectual property (IP) protections for goods’ reputations are essential to protecting the mutual investments and benefits producers and consumers make and derive from their economic activity. Geographical indications (GI) are one form of IP protection for reputations that provide producers the exclusive right to use the geographical region of their goods’ origin, for which the reputation of the goods has developed, in both labeling and advertising.

     Although most nations have domestic legal protection and enforcement procedures for GIs through trademark, certification mark, or sui generis GI legal protections, comprehensive and effective international GI protections have yet to be established. Many countries have divergent and often uncompromising views as to the level of protection countries should provide to other countries’ GIs. Over the past decade, this debate has been centered around ongoing multilateral and bilateral efforts to expand international GI protections beyond those provided in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In November 2001, WTO members declared their intention to expand TRIPS’ GI protections. However, all proposals for implementing TRIPS Plus protections have failed.

     Due to the failed attempts to implement multilateral TRIPS Plus protections, bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTA) have become the main alternative means for countries to implement international TRIPS Plus GI protections. In numerous FTAs, countries and trade blocs have or are in the process of adopting bilateral and multilateral international TRIPS Plus GI protections.

     Out of the numerous enacted and pending FTAs, few have more significance than the currently negotiated European Union-India Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (EU-India BTIA). The EU-India BTIA is one of the largest FTAs ever conceived on an economic and social scale. The EU and India have two of the five largest economies in the world (in size GDP) and their citizens represent nearly one-quarter of the world’s population.

     The EU-India BTIA will have a substantial impact on international GI protections. Over 1,400 GIs are currently or soon-to-be registered in the EU and India, including many of the world’s most well known goods such as “Darjeeling tea” and “Roquefort cheese.” The EU-India BTIA will also potentially be one of the first bilateral FTAs with TRIPS Plus GI provisions between developed and developing countries that have both domestic TRIPS Plus and sui generis GI protection systems.

     Beyond simply being the first FTA of its kind, the EU-India BTIA has the potential to impact two different, yet equally important issues in international GI protection. First, if the EU-India BTIA’s TRIPS Plus GI provisions are able to accommodate both the EU and India’s own domestic TRIPS Plus GI protections, the agreement’s GI provisions may provide a blueprint for future FTAs between developed and developing world TRIPS Plus GI proponents. Although many developing countries, including India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka, among others, have called for international TRIPS Plus GI reforms, many feel that international GI protection expansions should include protections particularly important to developing world countries, including GI protections for traditional indigenous goods and fair access to international GI protections and enforcement. By establishing provisions to provide such protections, the EU-India BTIA may help to guide developed and developing countries to establish greater international TRIPS Plus GI protections.

     Secondly, the EU-India BTIA’s GI provisions could also act as a possible solution between Anglo-American and Romanistic GI proponents’ current impasse over TRIPS GI protection reforms. Although likely not intended by either the EU or India, the GI provisions in the EU-India BTIA, due to the size and significance of the agreement, could act as a starting point to resolve the current deadlock between Anglo-American and Romanistic supporters in the TRIPS GI protection expansion debate if the EU and India’s GI provisions are flexible, effective, and show possible solutions to both Anglo-American and Romanistic country concerns.

     Despite the potential opportunities the EU-India BTIA provides for international TRIPS Plus GI protection advancements, this article will show that the EU and India’s GI proposals fail to provide effective international TRIPS Plus GI protections because they restrict the amount of GIs qualifying for protection under the EU-India BTIA, limit protections afforded to such GIs, and hinder means of enforcement.

     To understand these deficiencies in the EU-India BTIA GI proposals, Part I of this paper will examine current international GI protections under TRIPS, TRIPS’ protection deficiencies, and recent failed efforts to reform TRIPS’ deficiencies through multilateral initiatives. Evaluating these topics will enable an understanding of why TRIPS Plus GI proponents, such as the EU and India, seek to pursue international GI protections beyond TRIPS.

     Part II of this article examines the EU and India’s own GI protections in their domestic legislation. This will include an analysis of both countries’ GI legislation, as well as the rationales for their implementation, in order to establish the important TRIPS Plus features of their domestic GI protections that will be used in evaluating the EU and India’s GI proposals in Part III.

     Lastly, Part III will evaluate both countries’ proposals for GI protections in the EU-India BTIA. The draft proposals will be examined in relation to the countries’ domestic GI legislative frameworks as well as the consequences of the proposals’ implementation. This will be done both from a bilateral basis and within the perspective of multilateral TRIPS reforms, to determine their effectiveness in protecting both countries’ TRIPS Plus GI protections as well as providing an effective blueprint for enhanced international GI protections. This analysis will be focused on the three major aspects of the proposals: the scope of GIs qualifying for protection, afforded legal protections, and rights of enforcement.