The judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled, in a judgement of Thursday 2 May in case C-614/17, that the use of figurative signs referring to a geographical area to which a protected designation of origin (PDO) is linked could constitute an unlawful evocation of it.
A Spanish company markets cheeses not covered by the ‘queso manchego’ PDO, using labels with images and terms referring to the novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. This designation covers cheeses produced in the La Mancha region (Spain) with sheep's milk and meeting certain conditions.
A foundation responsible for protecting the ‘queso manchego’ PDO brought an action before the Spanish courts to establish that it had been infringed, considering that the labels in question constitute an unlawful reference to the PDO within the meaning of the Regulation on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs (Regulation 510/2006).
When the dispute was referred to it, the Spanish Supreme Court referred the matter to the Court for a preliminary ruling. It wished to know whether the evocation of a registered name was possible by the use of figurative signs and whether their use evoking a geographical area linked to a PDO was likely to constitute an evocation of it.
In their judgement, the Luxembourg judges first consider that the evocation of a registered name is likely to be produced by the use of figurative signs. It will be for the national court in the present case to assess whether the figurative signs concerned are likely to remind the consumer directly of the products bearing the name in question.
The Court further notes that the use of such signs referring to a geographical area to which a PDO is linked is likely to constitute an evocation of that designation, in particular where those signs are used by a producer based in that region but whose products are not covered by the PDO. Here too, it will be for the national court to assess whether there is a sufficiently direct and unambiguous conceptual proximity between the signs used by the Spanish company and the ‘queso manchego’ PDO, with the effect that the consumer thinks directly of the products covered by that PDO.
As such, the notion of “the average consumer who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect” refers, according to the judges, to European consumers, including consumers in the Member State in which the product giving rise to the evocation of the protected name is manufactured or with which it is geographically linked, and in which the product is mainly consumed.
More info at: http://bit.ly/2WkjzF4 (Lucas Tripoteau)