On September 6, 2022, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted the law On the peculiarities of the legal protection of geographical indications for agricultural products and food products, the protection of rights, and the application of quality schemes, including traditional guaranteed features for agricultural products and food products.
The goal is to ensure the fulfillment of Ukraine’s obligations in the field of European integration regarding the harmonization of legislation with the law of the European Union, which are provided for by the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the Regulation (EU) 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Amendments introduced to the legislation are:
– the concept of traditional guaranteed features, the conditions for providing legal protection, and the concept and procedure of applying special quality indicators are introduced;
– specified conditions for granting legal protection to geographical indications for agricultural products and food products and the grounds for refusing to grant such protection;
– the circle of persons who have the right to prepare specifications and other documents necessary for the state registration of geographical indications for agricultural products and food products has been specified;
– revised requirements for documents for state registration of geographical indications and traditional guaranteed features;
– the procedure for approval of specifications and other documents necessary for state registration of geographical indications for agricultural products and food products, traditional guaranteed features, is established;
– the requirements for technical conditions that must be met by the product for which a geographical indication or a traditional guaranteed feature is claimed are defined;
– the list of rights and obligations arising from the state registration of geographical indications has been clarified;
– the procedure for product certification regarding its compliance with the product specification with a geographical indication, a traditional guaranteed feature, has been established.