Rural Areas are helped through collective marks

Promoting competitiveness of products in rural areas is one of the targets in Peru this year. To do so, INDECOPI together with AGRORURAL (part of the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture) have established a partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to promote the use and registration of collective marks in different regions.

Collective marks, are used by a group of people (or companies) to distinguish their products from others undertakings – only to be used by members of that group/organization. Usually the group encourages standards and establishes a common strategy. It also may help “to promote the attraction of the area where producers are located.” Internationally, the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires the protection of collective marks - Peru is a member.

 

The trio, that is INDECOPI, AgroRural and UNIDO, discussed previous proposals from producers and selected some of them. The selected ones will now receive assistance in collective marks. The nominated were: ‘tallarin de casa’ Abanquino (Abancay - Apurimac Region), ‘native potatoes’ from the province of Acobamba (Huancavelica Region), 'native cotton' and 'honey of Lambayeque' (Lambayeque Region) and 'avocado Moro' and 'avocado Matacoto' (Ancash Region).

The program “not only seeks to promote the use and registration of collective marks, but to enable producers to have sufficient tools to help them improve their competitiveness and to develop successfully in the market.”

Source INDECOPI.