Wine Law

25 commercial use of that protected name” “by comparable products not complying with the product specification of the protected name” established for that use (as stated by the current article 103 of Regulation No. 1308/2013). First the OHIM Annulment Division and then its Fourth Chamber of Appeal dismissed the request for annulment. The Chamber of Appeal held that the protection of wine designations of origin is regulated exclusively by the European Regulation and lies strictly under the exclusive remit of the European Union, so that they are afforded a uniform and exhaustive protection system. It also argued that the trademark challenged did not make use of or invoke the protected names “Porto” or “Port” (we will discuss specifically further below the protection scheme of the registered name). Subsequently, the ruling of the appeal was challenged before the General Court. The ruling by this court appears to be, personally speaking, somewhat inconsistent. In section 38 of the Port Charlotte 1 ruling, the court states that, as far as the scope of the European Regulation is concerned, “the precise conditions and scope of that protection are laid down exclusively in” it. And, in a more explicit pronouncement, section 41 states: “It must accordingly be concluded that, as regards the scope of Regulation nº 491/2009, Article 118m(1) and (2) governs, in a uniform and exclusive manner, both the authorisation of and limits to, and even the prohibition of, commercial use of the protected designations of origin and of the protected geographical indications under EU law, so that, in that specific context, there was no need for the Board of Appeal to apply the conditions for protection specifically established in the relevant rules of Portuguese law which were the basis for the entry of the appellations of origin ‘porto’ or ‘port’ in the E-Bacchus database”. Once the uniformity and exclusivity of European law is established, it may seem inconsistent that further into the ruling, the court argues that “that conclusion is without prejudice to the question (…) whether the protection under [European Regulation defining wine designations] may be supplemented by another system of protection under EU law which, for its part, includes protection based on rules of national law ” .