The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted by a majority of votes the Proposal of the Law on the Protection of Geographical Origin Marks with the mark “EI” as a confirmation of appropriate compliance with the legislation of the European Union, with corrections included at the session.
The Institute for Intellectual Property of BiH proposed this law in order to strengthen the protection of intellectual property in the area of geographical indications and the need to fulfill international obligations in connection with its harmonization with the Agreement on Trade Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Madrid Agreement and the Lisbon Agreement.
In addition to defining the basic terms of designations of geographical origin based on the principles of modern standards, new terms (“protected geographical indication” and “protected name of origin”) were also introduced.
As announced by the BiH Council of Ministers, the new provision stipulates that not only the authorized user of the protected name of origin, but also the authorized user of the protected geographical indication has the exclusive right to mark their products with the defined mark.
At the same time, the list of products that can be protected with a designation of geographical origin is being expanded, and the protection of “Guaranteed traditional specialty” and “mountain product” is enabled.
A significant novelty in the proposed law is the abolition of the appeal procedure and the introduction of an administrative dispute that is initiated by a lawsuit before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the decisions of the Institute, which are final in the administrative procedure, which regulates this issue in a uniform manner in all proposed laws in the field of intellectual property.
The draft law will be submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH for the further adoption procedure, it says Radio Sarajevo.
