Collective marks, certification or guarantee marks, appellations of origin and geographical indications

Abstract

The study of collective marks is one of the least harmonious in trademark doctrine, a fact equally notorious in the field of the legislation applicable to it in the different legal systems. In Spanish, Swiss and American law collective marks are already clearly distinguished from guarantee or certification marks; in the United Kingdom only the certification mark is regulated, and there is no procedure for the registration of collective marks. Inevitably, the study of collective marks calls for that of certification or guarantee marks, as well as of designations of origin and geographical indications, concepts that intercommunicate in theory and also in practice. This is the reason for the treatment of these subjects in this article. The objective is to bring to the fore once again the contours of the understandings held at the level of national and foreign doctrine and legislation on the matter, without leaving aside the author's own perspective. In this exercise, it is seen that the enshrinement of certification or guarantee marks and of collective marks in Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 16 December 2015, appears capable of minimizing conceptual divergences.