From a letter written by a group of U.S. Senators:
Dear Secretary Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Froman:
We commend your past work to fight the growing geographical indication (GI) restrictions promoted by the European Union (EU). This trade barrier is of great concern to dairy and other food manufacturers in our states. On their behalf, we urge you to continue to push back against the EU's efforts to restrict our cheese exports, particularly to nations with which we already have free trade agreements. In addition, we urge you to make clear to your EU counterparts that the U.S. will reject any proposal in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations now underway that would restrict in any way the ability of US producers to use common cheese names.
And from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
Trade barriers are measures that governments or public authorities introduce that prevent or restrict overseas trade and investment. ...
Trade barriers may take the form of, for example:
...
Insufficient protection of intellectual property rights - both with respect to the scope of protection and with respect to the possibilities of legal protection. This includes, for instance, protection of patents, copyrights, trademarks and geographical indications of origin
So one side says that protections for GIs constitute a trade barrier; the other side says that insufficent protection is a trade barrier.
Does this mean that "trade barrier," like "market access," is not that useful a term?
