Champagne, Cognac, Rioja, Jerez and Vales dos Vinhedos: Conflicts between trademarks and geographical indications of wines and spirits in Brazil

Abstract

The world wine trade generated around 30 billion Euros in 2015. The wine consumer appreciates attributes such as tradition, quality and distinctiveness, characteristics that are associated with the terroir . In this segment, trademarks and geographical indications (GI) are relevant distinctive signs for the consumers' choice. Issues involving the protection of these signs have become increasingly stronger in the same proportion of the trade growth. Wine GIs hold a long tradition in the international scenario, particularly the European. In Brazil, the trademarks have a broader protection history, and the GIs were only acknowledged with the 1996 Industrial Property Law. Nevertheless, Brazil stands out as an emergent market for wines. The databank of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI-Brazil) shows that 30% of all applications for GI protection are for wines and spirits. Such figures indicate the growing importance of the GI for the segment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the applications for trademarks and GIs for wines and spirits, based on the INPI databank. For such, some foreign GIs have been chosen, for their historic and commercial importance, as well as one national GI, the first acknowledged in the segment. Among the results, several applications for trademarks from different applicants containing the searched terms have been found. From these results, it is believed that the coexistence and overlap of trademarks and GIs indicate the need for a review of the national legislation.