EUROPEAN COMMISSION - DG AGRI Unit H2 L130 03 ... - Marques

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It is important to note that publications in official journals do not usually reachconsumers. Rather, consumers tend to collect information from product labels,packaging or advertising material. In MARQUES’ view it would be appropriate tocommunicate this information to consumers via such labels or materials.It must be stressed that it is not always appropriate to assume that consumers will beable to digest information in the same way as competitors and stakeholders in themarket can do. Consumers require a different and much clearer kind of publicity. Theydo not engage watch services regarding official publications, do not often study andreview technical specifications and are not necessarily acquainted with legal terms andrequirements concerning the use of distinctive signs and geographical indications. Thissituation can also apply, in many cases, to other stakeholders.2.6.- GIs protected under international agreements (Article 11)Art. 11.2 of the proposal provides that designations of origin or geographical indicationsof third countries which are protected in the EU under an international agreement towhich the Union is a contracting party “may” be entered in the Register.MARQUES considers that it would be preferable to go one step further and establishthat the inclusion on the EU Register is a requirement to ensure effective protection forthe sake of certainty in the market. It is always easier to consult one database rather thanhaving to search among scattered International agreements to find out whether a name isprotected. Furthermore, the fact that some of the PDO/PGIs protected in the EU areentered into the Register and others are not, might lead to confusion as to the status ofthose PDO/PGIs which have not achieved the same status.This is in line with the recent EU Commission Regulation (EU) No 538/2011 of 1 June2011, where it is said that traditional terms protected in Annex XII thereto “should” betransferred to the electronic database E-Bacchus thus gathering protected designationsof origin, protected geographical indications and protected traditional terms in a singleIT tool, easily available for consultation purposes.2.7.- Traditional Specialities guaranteed (Article 18)As to Title III Traditional Specialities Guaranteed, notably Article18.1 (b), MARQUESgladly notes that this has been removed from the proposal as initially published.MARQUES respectfully considers that TSGs should not be used as a means to provideincreased market outlets for products covered by protected designations of origin andprotected geographical indications by setting a requirement for the protection ofTraditional Specialities Guaranteed that such products include as essential ingredients.6
2.8.- Protected termsMARQUES considers that it would be advisable that some provision is added to clarifysituations which might prove controversial, in order to avoid interpretations whichmight leave certain stakeholders and the consumers unprotected otherwise. For instance,in the judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber) of 11 May 2010 (Case T-237/08,Abadía Retuerta S.A. v Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market -OHIM), itwas considered that the geographical name EL PALOMAR was protected as ageographical indication of a quality wine psr (“produced in a specified region”) underEC Regulation 1493/1999. This was because the Designation of Origin VALENCIAhad been registered as a psr appellation and the national regulations governing theDesignation of Origin VALENCIA set out that its protection extended to many otherspecific names, including EL PALOMAR, even if such other geographical names hadnot been published in the EU Gazette, and even though the Court expressly recognizedthat:“102. It is sure that the way in which the Commission published the informationforwarded by the Kingdom of Spain hardly seems effective to ensure that thepublic is fully and completely informed, in so far as the name of the localadministrative areas which benefit from an indication of origin in relation to,inter alia, the region VALENCIA ... - including the name of the localadministrative area El Palomar- do not appear in the list published by theCommission.”Even if a similar situation may unlikely occur in the case of agricultural products andfoodstuffs, such possibility cannot be completely ruled out. The adoption of the newregulation would be a good opportunity to remove any uncertainties by clarifyingaspects which might otherwise lead to doubts in the market. For instance, with respectto use of generic terms, Article 38.1 of the proposal provides appropriate provision thatthe regulation will not affect use of terms that are generic in the European Union, evenif the generic term is part of a name that is protected under a quality scheme.A similar clarification may prove appropriate to explain that only those names whichare expressly registered as PDO, PGI or TSG are protected according to this regulationwhile any other geographical names of places included in the geographical area of thePDO, PGI or TSG are not likewise protected under the regulation.Amendment 47 in the ***Report A7-0266/2011 of the Committee of Agriculture andRural Development of the European Parliament on the proposal for a regulation of theEuropean Parliament and the Council (COM (2010) 0733-C7-0423/2010-2010/<strong>03</strong>53(COD)), constitutes a step forward on the way to legal certainty by providing - inrelation to Article 11, paragraph 3, of the proposal - that the register shall contain, as a7
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION - DG AGRI Unit H2 L130 03 ... - Marques

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