Adding value to Chile’s heritage products with the Sello de Origen

• Author: María Catalina Olivos - Francisco Carrasco
• Position: Cabinet of National Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI), Chile

This unique landscape with its staggering natural resources is home to over 17 million people who over the years have forged a wide range of cultural expressions – a rich patrimonial identity that underpins the distinct traditions of each individual community.

Adding value to traditional products

In an endeavor to promote the many high-quality products developed by these communities, and to preserve and add value to local manufacturing traditions, in July 2012 the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism and INAPI launched the Sello de Origen (Seal of Origin) program.

The initiative complements long-standing efforts led by the Ministry of Agriculture to protect and enhance the value of Chile’s high-quality wines and spirits.

The program’s aim is to promote and protect unique traditional products through the grant of exclusive industrial property rights. The Sello de Origen itself is a certification mark designed to encompass a broad range of traditional Chilean products and to render them more easily recognizable in the market. Each product that bears the Sello de Origen, however, is protected in its own right by one of four types of intellectual property right used to protect distinctive signs, namely appellations of origin (AOs), geographical indications (GIs), collective marks and certification marks.

“The Sello de Origen serves first and foremost as a clear and easily recognizable guarantee that the products bearing it are genuine, high quality goods, with characteristics which are intimately linked to the place in which they are produced,” says INAPI’s Director General, Maximiliano Santa Cruz. “Today, customers attach increasing importance to the origins of the goods they consume and the way they are made. Thanks to the Sello de Origen, these links are becoming increasingly visible. Consumers are paying greater attention to these products and demand for them is rising, and this is helping to promote our local industries.”

By organizing and bringing producers together to protect their origin-based products, the program is helping to create new value chains and business models to ensure that Chile’s traditional products are more competitive and better protected against unfair competition. With the Sello de Origen on their products, it is easier for producers to take legal action against any misuse. The Sello de Origen gives them an extra layer of protection above and beyond their national registration of GIs and AOs. “We are...