Solutions to Overseas Protection of China’s Geographical Indications

Geographical indication is one of the intellectual property rights protected by several multilateral agreements. Among these agreements, Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) has the most members and is most influential as well, but a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications has not been established up to now. In order to give better protection to China’s geographical indications in overseas market, additional measures must be taken. Firstly, China’s geographical indications can be registered in target countries. Secondly, the Chinese government should sign bilateral agreements on geographical indications protection with other countries. Thirdly, China has been taking part in several negotiations on free trade area, and the protection of geographical indications should also be taken into consideration. Lastly, the Madrid system of international registration for trademarks is also a practical way.


Introduction
Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights defined geographical indications (GIs) as "indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin". In chronological order, there are four major multilateral treaties related to the protection of geographical indications: Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property, Madrid Agreement for the Repression of False or Deceptive Indications of Source on Goods, Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and Their International Registration and Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. China is the member of the first one and fourth one.
The Paris Convention is the first multilateral treaty to protect geographical indications, but it only makes a simple provision in article 9 and article 10, doesn't offer feasible legal remedies for the right owners, as well as lacks supervisory mechanism, has no sanction measures if certain members violate their obligation.
The TRIPS Agreement, which has 164 members so far, is the most influential agreement on the protection of geographical indications. Relying on the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization, it can be said that it establishes the first global geographical indications protection system [1].

Applying for Registration in Target Market Countries
To protect Chinese geographical indications in other countries, the most direct way is to seek protection from the department in charge according to the geographical indication management system of the target market countries. When filing an application for trademark registration to the USPTO, you must specify the application bases, such as "use in commerce" and "intend-to-use" [3]. Since trademark law in the United States emphasizes the use of trademarks, it is necessary to provide a lot of evidences of their use in applying for a registered trademark. If Chinese geographical indications are to be registered as trademarks in the United States, the applicants must pay attention to the collection of evidence, such as contracts, advertisements, publicity materials and so on [4].
The advantage of applying for protection in target market countries is that it is direct and effective. However, it is very time-consuming to register single or multiple geographic indications in many countries or regions. In addition, it is difficult for the applicants who are not familiar with the legal environment of other countries. Therefore, this method is more suitable for geographical indications with the following characteristics: the sales area of the products of geographical indications are relatively concentrated, the operators have rich international trade experience and are abundant in financial expenses.

Protection through Bilateral Agreements
To sign bilateral agreements on the protection of geographical indications is a traditional means which plays an active and important role in the protection of geographical indications. In this aspect, the European Commission is the most active practitioner. Through bilateral agreements, the EC supplements the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and protects its specific geographical indications such as wine and spirits (Table 1).
Bilateral agreements can be divided into two types: one is a specialized agreement and the other is a comprehensive agreement. The former refers to the agreement specifically or mainly signed to solve the problem of geographical indications protection, while the latter refers to the content of the agreement including, but not limited to, the protection of geographical indications. In the case that the TRIPS agreement fails to reach a consensus on multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications, to sign bilateral agreements is an inevitable choice.

The Project of Mutual Recognition and Protection of Geographical
Indications between China and the European Union As to geographical indication protection, there is a common ground between China and EU. First, both China and the EU are among the world's top economies, they trade closely and each one is an important trading partner of the other. Statistics shows that China is the EU's largest import trading partner in 2017.
The EU imports from China accounted for 20 percent of its total imports from outside the region. China is also the second largest market of the EU's export, Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Moldova on reciprocal preferential trade concessions for certain wines accounting for 11.1 percent of the EU's total exports outside the region [5]. Both One event is the "ten plus ten" project between China and the EU. On Sep- The other event is the "a hundred plus a hundred" project. Based on the "ten plus ten" project mentioned above, China and the EU started the "100 + 100" project since 2011. According to the project, each side has submitted 100 geographical indications respectively based on the product popularity, economic benefits, quality and technical requirements. The implementation of "a hundred plus a hundred" project marks the "ten plus ten" project has been recognized by

Bilateral Agreement on Free Trade Area
China has also actively explored the use of bilateral agreements to protect geo-  with Canada, Bangladesh and other countries have also been in study, the above problems are expected to be solved in the future.

Bilateral Agreements under the "Belt and Road" Initiative
The "Belt and Road" initiative refers to the cooperative initiative proposed by sides, achieve the goal of cooperation [6]. With the further development of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the freight express from China to central Asia and Europe will be more unimpeded than moow, which will save a lot of time and cost for the export of China's goods, more and more products of geographical indications will go abroad.

Protection of Geographical Indications in Regional Agreements
WTO has been playing an important role in promoting the globalization of world economy since its establishment. However, with such a huge trade framework, it is difficult to coordinate the interests of all parties, regional trade agreements therefore have come into being. By 2017, 647 Regional Trade Agreements have been notified to the WTO, of which 433 have entered into force [7]. Some of the Agreements were designed to protect geographical indications, for example, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Bangui Agreements, and Resolution 486 on the Common System of Intellectual Property of the Andean Community and so on. There are at least two advantages in protecting geographical indications through regional agreements. The first one is cultural proximity. The difference of dietary culture, for instance, between countries in the same region is smaller than that of the countries far away from each other. For example, Chinese consume more green tea than black tea, while Britons prefer black tea.
European and American consumers like cheese, but Chinese consumers are in less demand. The second advantage is that the geographical proximity is convenient for transportation. Products of geographical indications are mostly agricultural products, and a considerable proportion of that are fresh products, the timeliness of delivery is essential, transportation between regional countries have remarkable advantages in this aspect.
At present, China is actively conducting negotiations on regional agreements, such as the Free Trade Agreement Between China, Japan and South Korea, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. Taking

Protection of Trademarks by International Registration System of Madrid
Before the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications under the TRIPS Agreement, the Madrid system for international registration of trademarks is an effective way to protect geographical indications in overseas market.
The Madrid system is a system for the international registration of trademarks administered by WIPO. The system is governed by two international treaties: one is Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks At present, the consciousness of Chinese enterprises to register their trademarks through the Madrid system is not strong enough (  high cost of money and time for redundant lawsuit procedures, this resulted in a huge loss of intangible assets. "LEGEND", for example, once a famous trademark for computer, was substituted by "LENOVO" because it was registered in many countries [11]. The Madrid System is a convenient and cost-effective solution for registering and managing trademarks worldwide. The cost of registering a trademark is obviously more economical than the cost of safeguarding the rights of the trademark after being infringed [10]. It can be said that registration is the best protection.
To register a geographical indication through the Madrid system, the applicants should register it as trademark in China firstly, then apply to the International Registration Division of the Trademark Office of China for international registration. After the formality examination, the International Registration Division applies to the International Bureau of WIPO for registration. If there are no irregularities in the application, the International Bureau of WIPO records the trademark in the International Register, and publishes the international registration in the official publication of the Madrid system, WIPO Gazette of International Marks, and notifies it to each designated Contracting Party.
To protect geographical indications through the Madrid system has many advantages. The first one is linguistic simplicity. The applicant may apply in English or French to the WIPO International Bureau through the trademark office of the home country, without having to apply separately to multiple countries in accordance with the laws relating to the protection of their geographical indications in multiple languages. Second is the economy of expenses. There is no need to pay several different fees to multiple countries, but a set of fees to the WIPO International Bureau. Third is the convenience of management. International registration through the Madrid system is valid for 10 years and may be renewed for a further period of 10 years after payment of the prescribed fee. The Madrid

Conclusions
All protection systems are the reflection of economic interests. The protection of geographical indications is more of an issue of economy than an issue of intellectual property or of consumer protection [12]. Thirdly, strengthen the investigation into overseas infringement on China's geographical indications. In this regard, we can study the experience of India by setting up a specialized foundation and contract the task of infringement surveillance around the world to international agencies [14]. Once the infringement such as rush registration occurs, the right owner should immediately file opposition according to the laws of the host country. As to abuse and other infringements, the right owners should file a lawsuit or through consultation and use other ways to protect their legitimate rights and interests.
Finally, we should sum up the experience of the project of "mutual recognition and protection of geographical indications between China and the EU", actively launch bilateral or multilateral negotiations with other countries, sign special agreements on protection of geographical indications and carry out win-win cooperation.

Future Research
This article brings forward several solutions to protect China's geographical indications in overseas markets, but the solutions are generally from a macroscopic perspective, more detailed measures are needed to study in the future. In ad-

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.