Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Agriculture - Uniform legislation - Protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs - Regulation No 2081/92 - Power of the Member States to adopt derogations - Condition - Existence of an express rule - Amendment of a registered designation, in breach of the Community procedure - Not permissible

(Council Regulation No 2081/92, Art. 17)

2 Agriculture - Uniform legislation - Protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs - Compound designation registered pursuant to the simplified procedure - Absence of any indication concerning a limit to the protection - Protection extending to all the terms in the designation - Conclusion not binding

(Council Regulation No 2081/92, Art 17; Commission Regulation No 1107/96)

Summary

3 Under the system introduced by Regulation No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs, where Member States have the power to adopt decisions, even of a provisional nature, which derogate from the provisions of the regulation, that power is derived from express rules. Any alteration of an element of the product specification, such as the name of the product, that is to say the registered designation of origin, can therefore be procured only within the framework of the Community arrangements and procedures laid down by the regulation.

Thus, since the entry into force of the aforementioned regulation, and in the case of a designation of origin for which a Member State has requested registration in accordance with the simplified procedure laid down in Article 17, which applies to names already in existence when the regulation entered into force, the Member State in question may not, by adopting provisions of national law, alter that name and protect it at national level.

4 As regards a `compound' designation of origin, registered in accordance with the simplified procedure laid down in Article 17 of Regulation No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs, the fact that there is no footnote in the annex to Regulation No 1107/96 specifying that registration is not sought for one of the parts of that designation does not necessarily mean that each of its constituent parts is protected.

There is nothing in the latter regulation to suggest that the use of the system of footnotes has such a purpose. Furthermore, under the system of protection created by Regulation No 2081/92, questions concerning the protection to be accorded to the various constituent parts of a name and, in particular, the question whether a generic name or a protected constituent part may be concerned, are matters which fall for determination by the national court on the basis of a detailed analysis of the facts presented before it by the parties concerned.