AS THE WEEKEND APPROACHES ...

A scrap of cheese

Commission Regulation 1357/2005 proudly announces the fact that CHEVROTIN has been accepted as a protected designation of origin for French cheese. France's original application under Regulation 2081/92 was opposed by Italy on the grounds that registration would be detrimental to other products on the market in Italy, in particular those called ‘caprino’ and that the translation in Italian of the name in question (caprino) was generic.

France argued that registration of CHEVROTIN would not lead to a ban on the use of the expression ‘de chèvre’ (goat) or ‘fromage de chèvre’ (goat cheese) to denominate cheese made from goat’s milk or, by the same token, use of the translation of these terms (in Italian, ‘caprino’ and ‘formaggio di capra’).

The Commission ruled that CHEVROTIN could not be considered a translation of the term ‘caprino’ and that, even if the term ‘caprino’ were generic, that would not imply that ‘chevrotin’ had also become generic. Further, since Italy did not provide any evidence from which it may be concluded that the term ‘chevrotin’ itself is generic.

More on Chevrotin here. Goat cheese recipes here and here (goat's cheese souffle, left)). Goat recipe here.


2 Latest EIPR

The September 2005 issue of the ever-popular European Intellectual Property Review, published monthly by Sweet & Maxwell, contains some solid trade mark stuff.

* Australian academic Michael Handler provides a critical analysis of the ECJ's approach to trade mark distinctiveness in the Sat.1 case;

* Henning Hartwig (Bardehle Pagenberg Dost Altenburg Geissler, Munich, right) considers the German Bundesgerichtshof's approach to balancing the interests of consumers and trade mark owners in the context of e-auctions.

There's also food for thought in Richard Arnold QC's Opinion, which agues that the copyright protection accorded to photographs is anomalous and that they should be accorded "signal copyright protection" like broadcasts, films and sound recordings.

3 Hot news from Qatar

It's always hot in Qatar, so far as the IPKat can tell, but the hot news is that Qatar is signing up for the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both with effect from 28 October 2005.

Dance, drama, film, literature and music in Qatar: the British connection.
How to keep cool in Qatar, for humans and cats.


4 An editor's grouse -- and what's yours?

Co-blogmeister Jeremy is spending the day editing articles and notes for the first issue of JIPLP (the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice), which will be published by Oxford University Press in November. Although he's delighted with the quality of the manuscripts before him, he is getting just that teeny bit incensed by the sometimes excessive use of the word "obviously" in legal articles. If something's truly obvious, the author shouldn't need to say that it is because the reader will recognise it as such. However, if it isn't obvious, the word shouldn't be there at all.

Other little things tend to get him riled but he hasn't found them in the JIPLP manuscripts yet, like writing about breach of copyright (instead of infringement).

There are probably lots of other terms and expressions that are anathema to readers, but of which he's quite unaware. If you have any favourite (sic) terminological or syntactical bugbears, do let him know and, if possible, he will endeavour to keep them out of JIPLP.