Guidance

Cancel a protected geographical product name

How to cancel a geographical indication (GI) registered under the UK government's GI scheme and how to appeal a cancellation.

• From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
• Published: 31 December 2020
• Last updated: 16 December 2024 — See all updates

You can ask to cancel a GI registered under the UK government’s GI scheme if you’re:

• a producer or producer group
• an individual or business with a legitimate interest

You should email your cancellation request to [email protected]. Include the reason for your request.

Reasons to request a cancellation

The competent authority can decide to cancel a registered product name, upon request or on its own initiative, if:

• no producer is complying with its specification
• it has not been produced for 7 years or more
• at the time the application to register the GI was submitted, the GI was a generic name (this does not apply to wine and spirit GIs)
• at the time the application to register the GI was submitted, the GI was likely to cause confusion with a pre-existing trademark or trademark application (this only applies to agri-food GIs, and then only to applications submitted on or after 15 December 2024 to register new GIs or change the name of existing GIs)

Opposition period

The competent authority publishes cancellation requests on the UK GI schemes applications, objections and decisions page.

Anyone can object to a request to cancel if they can show they rely on the registered product for their business.

Decision and right to appeal

If there are no objections, the competent authority will remove the GI name from the UK government’s GI schemes’ registers.

Anyone with a legitimate interest can appeal against this decision if they can show they are affected.

Published 31 December 2020
Last updated 16 December 2024 + show all updates

1. 16 December 2024

   References to 'consultations' amended to 'objections'. Also added 2 reasons to request a cancellation for a GI name registered under the agri-food GI scheme – if the GI was a generic name at the time the application was submitted under the UK government's GI agri-food scheme, or if the GI was likely to cause confusion with a pre-existing trademark or trademark application in the case of an application submitted on or after 15 December 2024.

2. 31 December 2020

   First published.