Since this accession, the French authorities have had to transfer the appellations of origin previously registered under the Lisbon Agreement to the new system set up by the Geneva Act at the international office of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This transfer of registrations required extensive work and coordination between the departments of the MAA, INAO, professionals and the European Commission.

Prior to this work, INAO requested the cancellation of 84 registrations, as they corresponded to appellations of origin that had disappeared or concerned product categories that should not have been the subject of autonomous registration. The list of French appellations of origin has therefore focused on 420 registrations:

• July: transfer of a first batch of 69 appellations of origin
• October: transfer of a second batch of 209 appellations of origin
• December: transfer of a third batch of 61 appellations of origin
• January 2022: transfers of a fourth batch of 16 appellations of origin

There are still 65 registrations - known as "complex cases" - pending: these are DGCs (complementary geographical denominations) or cases where there are significant discrepancies between the denominations registered at EU and WIPO level. These cases should be settled shortly.

The average cost of a transfer is around 1,200 euros per AO paid for by the GDOs.

Parallel to this important transfer work in the Geneva Act, the Commission has announced the possibility of proceeding with registrations of geographical indications that have never benefited from WIPO registrations - referred to as "primo-enregistrations". This concerns a first batch of 12 geographical indications for France.

This exercise of primo registrations will continue in the years to come.

All transfers and registrations will be visible and consultable on the WIPO International Register website.

Note (1): In view of the time and procedures required for countries and intergovernmental organizations to accede to the Geneva Act, to date the following have acceded: Cambodia, Côte d'Ivoire, Albania, Samoa, European Union, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Laos, France, Oman and Hungary; in addition to the 40 countries currently adhering to the Lisbon Agreement, other EU and non-EU countries are likely to join the Geneva Act in the very near future .

⁽¹⁾ _{In view of the time and procedures required for countries and intergovernmental organizations to accede to the Geneva Act, to date the following have joined: Cambodia, Côte d'Ivoire, Albania, Samoa, European Union, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Laos, France, Oman and Hungary; in addition to the 40 countries currently adhering to the Lisbon Agreement, other EU and non-EU countries are likely to join the Geneva Act in the very near future.}