Relevant Issues Regarding the Handling of Public Interest Litigation Cases Involving Geographical Indications by Prosecutorial Organs

Geographical indications possess a public attribute, and their protection primarily falls into two categories: the trademark law model and the specialized law model. However, existing protection models overlook the public attribute of geographical indications. The prosecution organs, acting as “legal supervisors” and initiating public interest litigation, can precisely address this shortcoming. Through case analysis and a comparison of geographical indication protection under the trademark law model and the specialized law model, this paper explores the role and intervention methods of prosecution organs in public interest litigation. It is found that prosecution organs primarily conduct supervision by organizing meetings, issuing procuratorial suggestions, and other means. When handling cases, they face issues such as unclear litigation subjects, disputes over role positioning, ambiguous case acceptance scope, and multiple procedural options. To handle geographical indication public interest litigation cases effectively, it is necessary to improve case handling methods in the field of public interest litigation, clarify the status of litigation subjects, define the scope of geographical indication public interest litigation cases, specify the procedural options for prosecution organs in handling cases, and enhance the multi-subject protection pathways for geographical indications. The different handling methods adopted by prosecution organs for cases under different protection models reflect the emphases of those models and provide insights for improving the geographical indication protection model.