argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: DOP - protection - products and services

On 9 September 2021, in the judgment of the case C-783/19, the E.U. Court in a case of a chain of Spanish tapas bars that used the name “champanillo”, clarifying the scope of application of the E.U. Regulation no. 1308/2013 which governs the protection of products with a protected designation of origin, provided that the relative protection must also be extended to “connected” services. The denomination “champanillo” (small champagne) was accompanied by two goblets filled with sparkling wine, to designate and promote its premises. The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), an organization for the protection of the interests of champagne producers, brought proceedings before the Spanish courts in order to obtain that the use of the term champanillo be prohibited as the use of this sign constitutes an infringement of the protected designation of origin (DOP) Champagne. For the E.U. Court, the Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that the ‘evocation’ does not require that the product benefiting from a DOP and the one marked are identical or similar; moreover, the violation takes place when the use of a denomination produces, in the mind of an average european consumer, who is normally informed and reasonably attentive and circumspect, a sufficiently direct and unambiguous link between that denomination and the DOP, for which it is necessary to ascertain whether the consumer, in the presence of a disputed denomination, is induced to have directly in mind, as a reference image, the goods protected. The existence of this link may result from various elements, in particular, from the partial incorporation of the protected name, from the phonetic and visual affinity between the two denominations and from the similarity that derives from it, and even in the absence of these elements, from the proximity conceptual between the DOp and the denomination in question or from a similarity between the products protected by that same DOP and the products or services marked by that same denomination, an assessment which is up to the national court.