In November 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) notified to the European Commission and the Member States the terms of a referral it received from the Spanish Supreme Court (PDO QUESO MANCHEGO vs. INDUSTRIAL QUESERA CUQUERELLA, S.L. TRIBUNAL SUPREMO S.1, MADRID, RECURSO DE CASACION 3250/14).
The Spanish case at stake involves the group representing the PDO “Queso Manchego” v. a company which is commercializing cheese products associated with graphical elements related to “La Mancha” region in Spain (such as Don Quijote de La Mancha, the Rocinante horse and middle-age wind mils).
The CJEU will not rule on the case itself. It is rather called to clarify the concept of evocation (art. 13.1 b of Regulation 1151/2012) and in particular whether conceptual graphical elements of a label (instead of phonetic or graphical resemblance to the PDO/PGI) can, under certain circumstances, represent for consumers an evocation of PDO/PGI.
Considering “evocation” a powerful tool for the protection of EU PDO, PGI and GIs, oriGIn prepared this paper to recall the main features of this category of infringement according to the EU Regulations and case law.
This summary has been extracted from an “oriGIn Alert”, which is a service reserved exclusively to oriGIn members.
