AI-Based Traceability and The Enforcement of Geographical Indications Under EU Law: A Legal Analysis

Abstract

Geographical indications occupy a distinctive place within European Union intellectual property law, protecting product names whose reputation and quality are tied to a specific territorial origin. While the Union's registration framework for geographical indications is comparatively well developed, enforcement against mislabelling, free-riding, and online counterfeiting has remained fragmented, decentralised, and largely reactive. Artificial intelligence-based traceability technologies, including blockchain-enabled tracking, machine-learning fraud detection, and image-recognition verification, are increasingly proposed as tools capable of shifting geographical indication enforcement toward proactive, supply-chain-wide monitoring. This article examines whether the European Union's legal architecture, spanning the revised geographical indications regime under Regulation (EU) 2024/1143, the General Data Protection Regulation, the Artificial Intelligence Act, and the new Product Liability Directive, adequately accommodates the deployment of such technologies. Adopting a doctrinal method, the article identifies five distinct regulatory gaps: the absence of technology-specific standards within the geographical indications regime itself; the ambiguous risk classification of enforcement-oriented artificial intelligence tools operated by private producer groups; unresolved data-protection questions arising from supply-chain surveillance; an unallocated liability gap for algorithmic misidentification; and fragmented competent-authority arrangements for online enforcement under the Digital Services Act. The article argues that closing these gaps calls for targeted implementing measures rather than wholesale legislative reform, and proposes specific interpretive and regulatory responses calibrated to the interests of producers, consumers, and supply-chain intermediaries.