 So, in any case, welcome everyone again virtually, at least to Cambridge and virtually to one of our seminars here from the Center for Intellectual Property and Information Law. My name is Henning Rosruz-Kahn. I'm one of the co-directors together with Lionel Bentley of the Center. It's in fact the first time I'm hosting one of these virtual events. We've done many, many in person for the last couple of years. But this time with the pandemic, of course, we've got to be virtual. But that allows us also to bring in people which we otherwise would have perhaps not been able to always get to come to Cambridge. And that's one of the particular instances we have today. So I'm really, really happy and very pleased to be able to introduce to you Ms. Javadi Farazadi. And I hope the seminars that I've pronounced that halfway correct. Ms. Javadi Farazadi is an IP trade lawyer and lecturer and consultant to international organizations, local governments, has worked in academia and has advised the UN and the European Union on IP and trade matters. She's currently mainly working with the Swiss IP Institute, with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, with the International Trade Center, ANKATART, and a range of other organizations in Geneva, and including also the EUIPO in Alicante. She's currently on a project with the EUIPO, in fact, and the vice president, organization of women in international trade in Geneva. She's got a master in international IP law, LLM in international trade law, and is doing a doctorate in intellectual property. So Ms. Javadi is going to speak to us about geographical indications, protection in the UK, and implications of Brexit and what we might be expecting, perhaps post-Brexit. So Sanas, I'm just going to hand over to you. We're going to basically hear from you for around about 40 minutes. After that, we're going to have time for questions and answers for another perhaps 15 to 20 minutes, after which we'll wrap up so that everyone can sort of get some dinner or whatever else, depending on the times on your end, at what is going to be around 6.30 UK time. So Sanas, I'm going to turn over to you. Thank you again so much for joining us, and we look forward to your talk. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone. Good evening. Good afternoon. I don't know from which countries you are joining us tonight. As introduced by Penny, my name is Sanas Javadi Parasladi. I'm an IT and trade lawyer based in Geneva, Switzerland, with extensive work experience with different UN agencies, including WIPO, International Trade Center, CIS, Federal and International Property, and I'm currently working with EYTO and the gender aspect of GI system in ASEAN region. So today I'm, because the time is really short, and this is one of the shortest presentations I've ever done during at least the last year during the pandemic time. So I'm just trying to be so quick, and I don't know from which background you're participating today, because I'm going to address some generalities of GIs. I cannot deep dive to intellectual property system because of the shortage of time. Normally I address a general aspect of intellectual property assets management, as well as branding aspect of intellectual property system. But today I'm going to just address GI issues from general perspective. And if the time allows, I'm going to also address some cases studies from developing countries in Latin America and ASEAN region. And of course, meanwhile, I'm going to address what's the current situation in UK after break. So what is geographical indications or GI? According to the general definition that word intellectual property or WIPO provides, a GI is a name or a symbol or a sign that can somehow specify or differentiate a product that is produced or is related to a certain region. And this product quality, specification, and reputation is linked to that region. And of course, in most cases for the production of such GI products, the traditional know-how and traditional knowledge and cultural heritage is also involved. Some of the very renowned GI, as you might know, is Darjeeling Tina. And I would assume that everyone knows Darjeeling Tina, especially in UK, Cafe de Colombia, Salon Tea, and Oku White Honey from Cameroon, Africa. GI products are distinctive signs that can, rather than near agricultural products, they can also protect handicrafts and artist style products in developed, developing, and least developed countries. And so what is the situation of this, the whole GI system is that GI is not, as I mentioned, is not only related to agricultural products. It can also relate and protect handicrafts like the Kashmir, Paschmina, India, Persian carpets, or Thai silk. GI system is of such an importance in especially developing and least developed countries, especially in agriculture economies, and that in certain countries in Asia, and of course in European Union, they have developed national original logos for identification and distinction of the local products. Like you can see in this slide that are like the national GI logo for the Cambodian products, for the Laotian products, for Chinese products, as well as the products that are being produced or sold in European Union level. Sorry that I have to be so quick. I'm just trying to pass by the slides so that I can address the generalities and diptypes to the UK system because of the lack of time. So if you have any questions, you can address it now so that I can answer at the end of the session. What is indicated by FAO, which is the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations, is that GI is the local development or local innovation of the local communities. And it can link a product to a particular region and it can, as I mentioned, protect agriculture and handicrafts. And in certain countries, it can also protect industrial products and in some countries such as Brazil, it can also protect the services. And of course, it indicates the qualities and reputation and specification that are associated with certain geographical region. And as I mentioned, for the GI product, it's in most cases the traditional knowledge of indigenous people or local communities is indicated. And what is the difference between GI system and the trademark system is that GI is permanently protectable. So as long as you have the product being produced in a certain region, you can have the legal protection so that all local producers or producers active in a certain region, they can use that GI logo or GI name. And of course, GI logo or GI as a regional brand is always used as a major component of quality management for the local products so that they can enter the premium or niche markets. So GI system has a lot of economic and non-economic advantages and it can contribute to provide better quality management of the products, especially now under the pandemic issue. And of course, the necessity of having the access to more safe food products. This is where GI can play a more important role. And of course, in GI system, the focus is more on the quality products rather than the quantity of the product. And it can provide the local producers so that they can enhance the business competitiveness of the product in local, regional and international markets. So GI is a very effective branding tool so that producers can enter, export markets. And it can always bring, because of the high quality that GI products provide, it can always provide the local producers with higher income in exchange for the high quality products that they provide to the consumers. And because of the high quality of the products, consumers are willing to pay higher prices, more prices to purchase such quality products in order to have a better, safer food products as well as the case of organic products. And as I mentioned, rather than economic benefits for the local producers, for the farmers, for the producers active in the supply chain, it can also bring additional values for the other producers not using the same GI system in the same region, which we call it spillover effect. And it can also boost and enhance the rural development and tourism in the region. Maybe it's better for me to somehow address some of the cases so that you can understand it better. And then I go back to the UK situation at a later stage. And because of the control system that is being applied under GI system by the GI organization that I will describe in the next few slides, we can have a better redistribution of the added value in the production of the product so that we can have the fair and equal distribution of the income inside the product value chain as well. And of course, because of the enhancement of business competitiveness of the regional products and the rural development of the region, we can somehow prevent migration to urban areas and we can create more employment opportunity for local producers. And of course, again, the control system that GI system applies, we can have better quality products with better environmental effects and also for preserving natural resources and of course, a positive impact on tourism and eco-tourism. So one of the other reasons for using the GI system is prevention of the imitation of fake products in the market. So we can see in this slide that we have different sort of advantages coming out of GI system, economic advantages and spill over effect to other products and other sectors in the region, social sustainability and social inclusion of all how do you call it like producers or retailers active in the region and of course, involvement of more women and employment of more women in the region and of course, having more environmental positive impacts and food security. And I'm going to describe why we will have these advantages out of GI system. The whole idea and the whole concept of GI system comes from negotiations in WTO and from TRIPS agreement articles 2224 and of course, under TRIPS agreement, all the products whose name has been, which name has become common or generic, they cannot be protected under GI system because like what we say under trademark system, in order to have GI system in place, we should have a distinctive sign so that we can differentiate the products of a certain market. So if name of a product has become generic, we cannot register it as GI anymore. And as you can see, we have at the moment more than 88 UK products that are protected under GI system, including food products, wine, beers, ciders, street drinks and wool. And beside WTO and TRIPS agreement, of course, we have word intellectual property or WIPO administration of certain treaties for the international protection of GIs, such as Paris Convention, Madrid system, Lisbon system, which of course I will describe later on that in certain countries, such as US, we don't have accepted GI system and we can protect the GI names under trademark system, such as a collective marks or certification marks. This is why we can use the Madrid system for this regard. As I mentioned, GIs are closely related to trademarks because both the signs are distinctive signs that they can differentiate products in the market. And they can also always specify certain products in the market compared to the other competitor companies products in the local or international market. But GI system or GIs and trademarks are different in two ways. One is that a trademark is always differentiating a particular company products or services. While GI is always differentiating the products of a place, products of all producers located in a certain region. And of course, because of the link to the place of origin, GIs cannot be assigned or licensed to third parties. So GIs opposite to trademarks cannot be licensed or franchised to third parties. So the GI rights are collective rights and regional rights, which belong to the all producers active in the certain region and producing certain products under certain rules and regulations. So these rights cannot be assigned to the people out of that certain region or community. It's really difficult to tackle behind the laptop with seeing no one. And it's like, I wish we can get rid of pandemic as soon as possible, because this is really like, I would like to have a better interaction with the audience. But unfortunately, this is the current situation. So like the other IP rights, GI protections are also territorial. So in order to have GI protection for your local products, you should always protect your products under the national phase in your national country. And then afterwards, you can seek the protection in other third countries, including EU or UK. And of course, there are so many ways of protection in regional or international level through bilateral or multilateral agreements, as I mentioned, like the systems that are administrated by WIPO, and also regional schemes such as EU. And of course, national phase for new UK scheme for protection of geographical indication that I will discuss today. So beside the GI sui generis system that in certain countries, including UK, there are regulations governing GI protection. In some countries like US, for example, we don't have a sui generis system on GI protection. And GI names or GI signs or GI products are protected under a trademark system. And in different countries, there are different mechanisms applied for the protection of the local products, rather than GI's or trademark regulations. And there are some other scattered provisions under consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws, and of course, local and specific rules of business associations or producers associations established in each and every region. So these are like the summary of the benefit of GI protection, the economic advantages, which contributes to the higher prices of the quality products or premium products. And of course, link to boosting the rural area and tourism, creation of more jobs and employment, and a spillover effect that I described. Better quality management of the product and preservation of natural resources and cultural heritage and positive impacts on the environment. What is different, again, between GI and trademark is that for a GI system to be effective and efficient, we need to have a GI organization in place. And GI organization is an interprofessional body or organization that can bring together all producers, all actors, retailers, traders, operators, active in the certain geographical region. And all these producers should sit together, agree together on certain rules, how to produce certain product, how to process, how to package, how to put pricing, how to advertise for the products, how to do the marketing strategies, where to export and reach quality management rules to apply. And all the producers and supply chain actors, they should actually agree on certain rules, such as which is named book of specification or code of practice, which can, which describe the good and production methods. And the GI name shall be used only for the goods produced in accordance with the specifications already determined in the book of specification and agreed by all producers. So GI system is a collective action. It's a collective action which needs the commitment of the whole or like all the producers that are active in the region and they are willing to use the GI logo. And of course, again for GI registration and GI protection, there should be always a proven link to show that this certain product quality and specification is attributable to certain region because of the climate, because of the soil, because of the people's skills, traditional knowledge and human factors. So as I mentioned in different countries, there could be different regulations for GI to be applied. And one of the local regulations and directives that can be applied among the producers in a certain geographical region is the code of practice. And in the code of practice, which is basically a document that is establishing the rules for use of the geographical indication, all product specification, ingredients or raw materials, process of the production, the quality, the production area and the limitation, the labeling rules, marketing rules and control system should be identified. And as I mentioned in the previous slide, all the producers and traders active in a certain region, they have to agree on this code of practice. And when they are going to register a product under GI system, they have to attach this code of practice to their GI application. One of the very important issues regarding GI is that GI is some sort of partnership or cooperation between public or government sector together with private sector. Public or government plays a role for protection of the local products and providing the legal infrastructure or protection infrastructure for local producers. And of course, at the same time, private sector has the main beneficiary and user of the GI system. So for both sectors, there should be some sort of commitment and of course among all producers as well, there should be some sort of commitment so that all these producers see themselves committed to the GI rules, to labeling rules, to pricing rules, to marketing rules and as well as respecting the quality of the certain product. So this means that if one of the producers is not respecting the GI rules, which is already agreed on the code of practice, this producer cannot take the advantage of GI protection anymore and would be out of GI system basically. And this has happened in my previous projects that I was directly or indirectly involved on behalf of World Intellectual Property Organization. We had this difficulty in some certain lists, like some of the least developed countries in Asia that some of the local producers because of the lack of the knowledge of the importance of the GI system or because they were already somehow successful in the market and they had a very well-established brand in the market, they were not willing to cooperate and commit to the GI system and they wanted to go ahead individually under their own initial brand or company brand or company trademarks. So you really had difficulties to engage all these big producers that they had some sort of monopoly over the market. And in the end, what happened was that the local government asked us not to engage these local producers that are somehow getting problematic and the way of establishment of the GI system for the local products. So this is where the importance of commitment of the local producers and cooperation among themselves come into play. So what is the situation in UK at the moment? So we all know that we had Brexit and we had the expiry of the withdrawal agreement at the end of 2020. So from the beginning of this year, we have a new GIS scheme to be applied in UK but to and to be managed by the department for environment, food and rural affairs or DEFRA in UK. So the GI issues from now on will be managed by DEFRA and other types of IP protection such as trademarks or patents or designs as before, they would continue to be managed by UK IPFs. And under new UK GI system, all the producers in UK or outside that are selling their products in UK market, they can take the advantage of this new system. And of course, having the new scheme in UK as a part of UK obligations under TRIPS agreement in WTO. And so all the products that are sold in great, a great retain England, Scotland and Wales would be covered under the UK new GI scheme. Sorry again that I'm so fast because I'm just trying to get to the case of studies so that you can understand the situation better. So as I mentioned on the expiry of the transition period of last month, EU GI system is not effective in UK anymore. And at present, of course, there is no initial or substantive difference between the regulations or substance of UK or GI schemes rather than the territory that they're being applied. So the substance of both regulations are the same, but of course EU scheme is not being applied in UK anymore. And under the new GI scheme, all agri-food products, wines, aromatized wines, esprit planks are being protected under UK GI system. And EU GI scheme will continue to protect all products being sold in European Union level and Northern Ireland. Before I forget, so for those who are interested to read more about this new scheme, of course I couldn't have the access to the colleagues in DEFRA department because of the shortage of time, you can have all the information available on the website. And of course, you can also find relevant EU information on EC website. So I extracted all this information from the government website before I forgot to mention. So again, under the, like we had this some sort of way of three ways of protection for local products under EU level and the same rules are gonna apply under UK GI scheme, which is protection of designation of origin or PDO, protected geographical indication, PGI and traditional speciality guaranteed or TSG. For the ones who doesn't know about these terms, PDO is going to be applied on the products that majorly are their way of protection or raw materials or the major part of the process has been done in a certain region. For the protected geographical indication, this degree of protection in a certain geographical region is less than PDO. So it's not 100% if some part of the products or raw materials are related into a certain geographical region, we can use the PGI system. And for traditional a speciality guaranteed or TSG, this is not related to a certain geographical region, but it's related to certain traditional knowledge or method for protection of the certain product. So under the new scheme, we can apply three different levels of protection based on the level of production or the process of certain products. And all existing UK products registered under EU GI scheme by the end of transition period will remain effective under UK GI system. So they will somehow transfer to be protected under UK GI scheme and they will not be canceled. And the registered GIs that can be produced anywhere out of Ireland will continue to be fully protected in UK and EU such as Irish whiskey, Irish cream or Irish party. As I mentioned, you can have the access to all information on DEFRA website for better usage of new GI scheme UK. DEFRA has issued a guidance like I think it was at the end of 2020 explaining how UK trademark system can interact with GI protection from the beginning of this year. And of course there are some other information available on the priority between trademarks and GI for the rights filed within nine months of the transition period under the trademark business guidance. So for the time being, in order to protect your local product under UK scheme, you can use two different guidance for GIs and for the trademark for protection of your local products. And these are the issues that you can protect under GI scheme. You can of course use the scheme for registration of your product's name or there are also some aspects regarding the protection of US wines and sprit in UK. And of course these wine and sprit as I mentioned are not according to US system. They are not protected under GI system but they are registered in order to prevent registration of the similar trademark to the names of these American products in UK. So any sort of application for the UK GI scheme, any sort of use of GI names, change of the product specification, canceling a certain product name and any sort of appeal or using of the logos and labeling rules are all guided under the guidance that is issued by DEFRA. I don't have time to go to the details of the guidance but under the logo, the labeling and the logo part of the guidance, the products can take the advantage of three different labels or logos in UK and producers and retailers. They can have time for almost three years to make changes to the logo they use for packaging and marketing and advertising in the market. So what will happen to the outstanding application for EU GIs at the moment? So as I mentioned, the EU GI application will continue to progress and if granted will apply to EU member state and Northern Ireland. So the applicant should apply separately to DEFRA for protection in England, Scotland and Wales. I think some parts maybe they are not so much clear because this guidance and the new scheme is quite like it's not even one month old yet. So I think there would be so many discussions and debate on the new scheme in UK and I'm not a UK expert of course, but I just try to somehow extract the major points that I didn't maybe relevant for the presentation. And so who is eligible or who can apply to register a GI in UK? Any entity that is any sort of like because there is no limitation for the application of the for GI application in UK, but if the applicant is not based in England, Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland, they have to, I mentioned this in the beginning of my presentation, they have to seek the protection in their home nation or their local countries prior to making any application through DEFRA for UK registration. One of the issues that you might know is that intellectual property provisions and of course GI issues are mostly included in the free trade agreements formerly between EU and trade countries and from now on between UK and like a business or trade counterparts. So one of the effective FDAs that are in force at the moment is UK Japan free trade agreement which is protecting UK goods such as Scottish salmon, Scottish beef, Scottish lamb, Welsh lamb or other products under the trade agreement and before under the previous FDA between UK and Japan, only seven UK products were protected under GI system in Japan, but now according to the new free trade agreement up to 70 products of UK are being protected in Japan so that they can have the possibility to enter Japanese markets. And as I mentioned, of course, you should under the GI system, you should always establish and promote a logo and register this logo as some sort of identity and identification of your products so that you can export your products under this GI logo to export markets. Another trade agreement that is in force now is the UK and EU trade cooperation agreement which also covers some generalities on intellectual property including GIs and GI protection will continue for this year like I mean the UK GI products, they will have the same legal protection as before provided that UK has signed a continuity agreement with other countries because UK was a part of EU before and had signed some several FDA and from now on if UK has signed a continuity agreement with other countries such an Indian community, Chile or Switzerland, all UK products will continue to have the GI protection in these markets and other EU third country sectorial agreements where UK has also signed a continuity agreement so if there is no agreement for the time being in place this means that UK should seek new free trade agreements so that the third countries can protect UK products under GI system or if the trademark system is applied like Canada or US they can protect UK products under collective or certification marks. Sorry that I didn't have time today to include the differences between GI system, trademark system, how they overlap, how we can take advantage of both systems at the same time because the time is limited but of course as I mentioned in certain legal systems that you don't have a GI system in place you can always resort to the collective trademark system. So one of the, because like I have included up to three or four cases studies from different countries in Asia and Latin America that they were really successful case studies of the protection of agriculture products under GI system. One of the famous, the most well-known ones that I thought maybe it's relevant for the UK is Darjeeling tea that of course before having the GI system the tea was somehow mixed the different qualities of the tea was mixed and like the high quality tea was mixed with the low quality tea and they were smuggled or they were exploited with the low price or in bulk rather than being branded. And so Indian government came to the conclusion it's about one century that they came to the conclusion that they have to seek some sort of legal protection so that they can have a better market situation or better market position to sell their products. And so a keyboard was established to manage all administration and all stages of the tea production and cultivation and processing and marketing in India. And Darjeeling is a region of 87 designated gardens in the hill of Darjeeling district in India. There are so many stories and cases about the passing of or misuse of Darjeeling brand which of course are all available for free on internet but the reason rather than the misuse or imitation of Darjeeling tea in international market was also the unique and reputation and the unique specification and characteristic that the tea had compared to the other teas in the market. So the keyboard was established and took certain legal and administrative actions for the protection of Darjeeling tea in case of misuse and infringement. And the keyboard established a mechanism to protect supply chain to determine the authenticity of the tea sold as Darjeeling especially in the export market because one of the major functions of the GI system is using the name international or in export market because of the reputation that is associated with the local product. And so in 1986, the logo was created and registered in UK, US, Canada, Japan, Egypt and other countries either under trademark system or under GI system in 2004. So for the same product you can have both GI system and trademark system in parallel depending on the each country that you are willing to seek the protection. And these are the mark that are opposing different markets that for different classes of good and services either for other goods and services rather than agriculture products. And these are some other cases. I have, I think, three other cases to address but I'm not sure if we have time. Let me see. Someone has asked me, yeah, the slide would be circulated afterwards for sure because I don't have enough time to address everything. And again, I apologize for being super, super fast because I know it may need more deep dive and more specifications so that you can address under whole situation thoroughly. But of course, yeah, again, I emphasize that because someone asked this question that you can always have both GI and collective or certification mark in place at the same time depending on the situation. I mean, depending on each market legal system. One of the, before we get to the end of the session I would like to address one of the initiative that is really active in Asia now is One Village, One Product Program or One District, One Product Program that are like in different also on countries in Southeast Asia they are protecting the local products of different regions of each country. And one of the very interesting programs is OBOB or One Village, One Product Program in Cambodia for the sake of promotion of rural economic growth in South Cambodia especially and improving the living standard of the people through improvement of local brands and again preventing immigration to urban areas and producing products with export, export potentials like for protection of high quality products. And under this initiative, the government of Cambodia could stick the protection of the first national GI for a comfort pepper, comfort and pepper to provinces in South Cambodia and of course at the same time for the sugar and to seek the national registration in the Ministry of Commerce in 2010 and then the registration in WET recognition by WET in 2010 registration in Vietnam and Thailand as the major neighboring countries like majoring export countries in 2016 and 2017. And in European Union in 2016 and comfort pepper or like the because I mentioned to you before that some countries such as Cambodia they also rather than regional brands they also use a national logo or national brand in order to identify their products. So this is one of the products that the government of Cambodia is using the both regional and national branding for the sake of export especially to European Union. So I don't know how much time is left though. I think we might have to wrap up Sanas just to be sure that we have maybe about a couple of minutes of question time left. So maybe one or two minutes if you can wrap up within that time and then we have a bit of time left for questions if that would be okay. Yeah, that would be perfect because now I'm receiving the question now so yeah for sure. So as I briefly described today like the whole GI system is a very vast and wide area to be discovered and of course it's still under development even if you refer it to the international protection system compared to the trademark system you can see that under Lisbon system for the international protection of GIs you have less member states and less signatories compared to the Madrid system for international protection of trademarks. So GI system is still under development it needs more awareness raising and more training, more recognition and someone has asked me about the legal research about the GI in Mexico like the protection of textile in Mexico through GI system. And of course I mean this would be like you can I think I have my, let me put you my email in the last slide you can drop me questions afterwards because this is a very interesting point to address for the Mexico. I haven't been engaged in any project in Mexico but if you require general knowledge on how to define the policies in Mexico I would be more than happy to provide you with the information. And another question is whether I can comment on the reason why UK has registered so few GIs compared to France, Spain or Italy and whether this will change after Brexit. I mean up to my knowledge as I mentioned I'm not a UK expert and I couldn't have the possibility if I was in UK I could gather information but being in Switzerland and having access to the updated information is really difficult. I tried to find the or contact few people in UK government to get updated information about the future policies or approach in this regard but up to now I have got no response but one of the thing that I think maybe is relevant is maybe because as I mentioned most countries where so much trademark oriented in the past and they were rather like basically even using collective or certification marks or individual trademarks rather than GIs. So now the system is evolving especially after pandemic and because of the food security reasons the governments, the countries have come to the conclusion that GIs system is quite important and is relevant for the sake of the food safety environmental aspect and of course for the differentiation of the product in international markets. So I think this is why UK is getting more and more active because of course the advantages is more known at the moment and of course there are so many different products in the market in Great Britain, in Scotland so that I mean they need protection. So I would assume in near future we will have more protection of UK products. To be honest with you even for me it was a big question why UK was not that active before this but anyways I think after getting out of European Union and after Brexit we will see more, how do you call it? More initiatives from UK in future. I'm quite sure about this. And this is one of the very first things being done in UK's. You can see that not so many organizations are active in the field of GIs in UK. So this would be a great opportunity to start to work on the matter in terms of policy perspective, academic research or practical projects. So another question I'm gonna answer the last question and I think you can always contact me on my email address or you can find me on LinkedIn I would be more than happy to respond. So another question is regarding the control process the commitment to prepare the commitment by the producers authorized and ratified national government or are producers free to set what a standard they want? No, actually for setting that this is a very relevant question. Thank you so much for setting all the regulations and all practices on how to produce a product how to process a product, how to package a product or how to do the marketing or even the pricing the initial phase comes the initial agreement comes from the producers themselves. But when it goes in most cases when it goes to the quality management parts because there's in most cases it's a government authority who would approve the certain quality in the product. This is where the government comes into play. But in other cases in some countries maybe they use the private certification bodies. So it really depends on each and every country mechanism. So it could be either the government side or it could be the private side. And as long as the regulations doesn't distort the local market or the local competition the producers are somehow free to set the rules that they want for the sake of the promotion of their product under the regional branding mechanism. But this is really, really a good question. I have to also, you know, like investigate more about this up to what extent the producers are bound to the government I mean the local government regulations. So Henning, I think we're almost done. I don't know if we have, I think we have maybe only three minutes left. So. Yeah, well, thanks a lot, Sanas. That was excellent, a really sort of comprehensive tour de force through GI protection in general the international dimensions, various case studies and I understand you would have had some more but I think you mentioned already you would be perhaps willing to share your slides. So if that's the case, then of course people will be able to find that on our website or I guess they could also approach you using the email address here. So they will be able to see these further case studies. So, and you've also made my job as chair really, really easy because you've managed the questions yourself. So that was nothing I... Because of the lack of the time I was like jumping I was really quick. I haven't been this quick all my life. That's absolutely fine. Maybe if you allow, I know we need to sort of wrap up very soon, but if I can just ask one final question sort of abuse my privilege as a chair here also because I don't see any other questions coming up. So you've spoken about the code of practice and you've spoken about various regulatory mechanisms and other aspects which you need to put into place in order to significantly benefit from a GI system. And that's on the perhaps national level first but then you want to perhaps also obtain in order to reach international markets you want to obtain protection abroad and so on. So I'm just wondering because all of that of course doesn't come for free, right? There's certain barriers to entering this system which are gonna be costly to some extent. So is there a general formula to say, okay, it makes sense to do this once you've reached a certain degree of commercialization of a product or once you have a certain amount of funds available to you in order to do this because as it doesn't come for free and unless you have maybe international donors or others paying for this it's not gonna be something which every single small producer in a low income country will be able to do. So is there like a general formula? Is that just a question of case by case to say when it makes economically sense to use GI as a route for commercializing your products? Thank you. That is a very good question. Actually what I did in the past and what I'm doing now interacting with the local producers and business association is that before it's not even related to GI itself this is related to each and every IP rights. Before seeking the legal protection you should have the feasibility study and the market assessment. If you don't see market potentials or if you don't see enough market potentials or market competitiveness it would be as you mentioned the waste of budget and fund and waste of time because I witnessed this in South East Asia. They were the local government was willing to push for the protection of the local products that they didn't have enough market value or enough market potential. So what I would suggest is that before seeking because establishment of the GI system is really time consuming and expensive. It's not like a single trademark you submit your trademark application and that's it. Also okay you do advanced search fees and that but for GI systems sometimes it takes three to few years time so that you can establish GI system in a certain region for one single product. So before seeking such a protection I would even for UK I would highly recommend to assess the market potential first before going further. Yeah thank you so much Sanas. I think that's a very good sort of in a way a reality check point to close on also because it generally as you said because it's not only about GI as it generally relates to IP we as lawyers or me perhaps as a lawyer perhaps we tend to focus on the law itself not really perhaps always understanding the economic realities surrounding the law and which the law is meant to address ideally. So in that way I think a very good point to close with that we have to understand the commercial situation more broadly and the ups and downs and whether and to what extent it does make sense to look for that particular route of protection in the case of GI's or what other mechanisms maybe equally feasible or better. Sanas I just want to thank you again so much for your presentation for the handling of all these questions. Thanks for that. Maybe at some point when all of this pandemic comes hopefully well to a close or at least sort of allows us to interact more freely again we'll be happy to welcome you in person in Cambridge as well. Lovely to meet in person at some point. Handing for each and every lawyer. Oh my God yeah. But you know I'm really grateful grateful for this opportunity. We I really I would like to continue these sessions in future for the sake of because it's as I mentioned we cannot summarize the whole GI system in 40 minutes and I just know like I still have a lot to talk about and as you mentioned I'm trying not to have only legal perspective I'm trying to have commercial perspective at the same time. This is what I learned from my manager in Waipo that the lawyer needs to have a business approach at the same time so yeah. True, true. And in fact I mean as you sort of started to discuss the UK's future on GI maybe in a couple of years there's more to say about that as well. So let me just close by also thinking all of our attendees and thanks Dan for managing all this here late in the afternoon here in the UK. Everyone please take care stay safe and thank you for joining us and look out for the next simple seminars. So now as you have a good evening in Geneva and I'll say you know all the best to everyone and take care and see you soon. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye.