Trademark World
The IPKat has just been thumbing through the December 2005/January 2006 issue of Informa's Trademark World . What has he found?
One other feature that the IPKat particularly liked was a review by Wim Alberts (John & Kernick, Jo'berg) on sabotage marketing, a highly dubious cousin of the more legitimate, fun-loving ambush marketing, and on the means by which the law can stamp on it.
Yesterday was a big day for Melton Mowbray pies, following Northern Foods plc v Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [2005] EWHC 2971 (Admin), a Queen’s Bench Division (Administrative Court) decision of Mr Justice Crane.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) forwarded to the European Commission an application by the to register the words ‘Melton Mowbray Pork Pie’ as a protected geographical indication (PGI) under Council Regulation 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs. Northern Foods, objecting to the narrow definition of the geographical area in the application's specification, sought judicial review of the decision to forward the application to the Commission.
The IPKat is most impressed at the ability of PGI and PDO law to turn back the clock and draw back into controlled usage a term such as "Melton Mowbray" that was very widely used with no apparent distress to the great pie-eating public. The same is happening with Feta. But who is speaking up for the consumers' interests?
This little piggy went to market ... here
Old Elizabethan Pig Pie here
If the Melton Mowbray area becomes the only legal source for the eponymous pies is there hope for CHEDDAR cheese to be similarly restricted like FETA cheese?
ReplyDeleteIt should be noted that Melton Mowbray has not yet become a PGI - it still needs to be established to the European Commission's satisfaction that the the designation qualifies for protection. It may very well prove difficult to claim that the pies have any quality attributable to their geographical origin.
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