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[penguinofhonor]

I heard this agreement makes it legal for sharks to hunt on land.

Something less tongue-in-cheek: I finally got around to the geographical naming restrictions section, or SOPA for Food. Here is my hopefully adequate summary.

QQ.D.1 says the countries acknowledge "geographical indications" can be protected through legal means (such as trademarks), and then QQ.D.2 details some standards for the system you use to accept these trademark applications - you can't require a third party to be involved or bog people down with "overly burdensome formalities", you have to provide a system to revoke a geographical indication or oppose an application, and you have to make sure all the regulations and application processes are public knowledge.

A footnote here adds that you can't require a third party to be involved in judicial procedures involving a geographical indication.

QQ.D.3 further explains the revocation/opposition process and sets some requirements for it. You have to have procedures to cancel an application or end a trademark if it could be confused with an existing trademark or "good faith" application, or if the term is a common word for this product in your country. You can add more reasons for revocation if you want but those are the required ones. Countries have to recognize that the use of a term can change, potentially making its trademark invalid.

If a country has a system that protects unregistered geographical indications, they must allow that protection to be denied for the same reasons as registered indications. A country must also allow people to register translations or transliterations of their geographical indications, with the same standards set up in QQ.D.2.

A couple notable footnotes here. One says that a country does not have to enforce this whole QQ.D.3 section on wines and spirits if they don't want to. Another one explains that if a country does want to enforce geographical designations for wines and spirits, for "products of the vine" (it actually says that) you do not have to enforce another country's regional grape variety name if you have a regional grape variety with the same name.

QQ.D.8 (where are 4-7???) is about revoking a geographical indication because it is a common word for the product in your country. It says that each country's "authorities shall have the authority" to decide if a given term is a common word, and that it should be based on how consumers understand the word. It suggests that they refer to "competent sources such as dictionaries, newspapers, and relevant websites" and examine how that product is marketed in their country.

QQ.D.9 is basically clarification for "multi-component terms". If a geographical indication has multiple parts and one of those is a common word for the product in your country, that part of the geographical indication is not to be protected.

QQ.D.6 (oh my god why) is basically ex post facto prevention. When you register a trademark term as protected, you cannot enforce those protections on any uses of the term before that date.

QQ.D.13 (what are numbers) is about country names. Each country that signs the bill will allow other signing countries to apply for protections on their own country's name. These would prevent use of the name "in a manner which misleads consumers as to the origin of such goods."

I've been trying to understand the last section (QQ.D.5 - gah) for a bit but I'm giving up because I things to do in real life that are way more fun than reading legislation. It looks like it expands the QQ.D.2-3 standards to international agreements but there's still a few bits I'm foggy on. I may come back to this later. I may not because I mainly cared about bourbon and people don't even have to enforce this for booze. What's the point then? Sorry my state didn't make cheese. Guess we just got the short end of the culture stick.

The section does not seem crazy invasive to me, though.

[Helgoland]

Inb4 ignorent Americans claim that any sort of powdered hard cheese is Parmesan

Seriously though, it's really not. The whole geographical naming restrictions thing is a very big deal for us Europeans, in part because it provides us with a way to preserve and defend our local identities against both the EU as a whole and the US.

[Sheb]

Seriously though, it's really not. The whole geographical naming restrictions thing is a very big deal for us Europeans, in part because it provides us with a way to preserve and defend our local identities against both the EU as a whole and the US.

Also, it's the one thing preventing Kölsch from spreading like a hot plague bukkakke.

[Helgoland]

Huh, I wonder if anyone ever tried exporting it en masse to the US... It would fit their general taste, no? Just market it as a slightly fancier PBR.

[penguinofhonor]

Europe and America already largely ignore each other's regional indications - that's one of the things the TTIP is supposed to change. We've got American Champagne and Feta and apparently even Kölsch (I had one that was not called Kölsch - it was not very good). There's also European-made "bourbon", which is offensive.

The TTIP protections better not be optional for wine and spirits too. Why is my region's culture less important than some area that made shitty beer?

[Helgoland]

U fokken wot m8? How is it our fault that you guys produce beer by putting a bucket under a horse? Then again, from the descendants of puritan Englishmen you really can't expect any better...

[Bohandas]

Inb4 ignorent Americans claim that any sort of powdered hard cheese is Parmesan

Seriously though, it's really not. The whole geographical naming restrictions thing is a very big deal for us Europeans, in part because it provides us with a way to preserve and defend our local identities against both the EU as a whole and the US.

As a believer in cosmopolitanism, I'm opposed to that.

[Bauglir]

I don't really get the idea that product names are such an integral part of culture that they need to be "protected" this way. And I'm not just putting it in quotes to demean the argument, I literally don't understand what's being protected. As a matter of fact, additional rules about who can call what by which name seems a better way of strangling culture, not defending it.

The only real argument I understand for that is that consumers can reasonably have some expectation that a product called "champagne" was, in fact, produced in Champagne, or whatever. For products whose names have long since become generic, though, that doesn't really apply. And neither would it to products that gain the same sort of use in the future, or ones that aren't locations but have still become generic in some way; I'd rather the law permit all brands of tissue to call themselves Kleenex, if they wanted, less the trademark symbol, for example.

I mean, I certainly understand why you'd want the money flowing in because of the name association. The money from the Cheddar industry alone! But "I want it" is hardly a good reason for passing laws that bind other people. We didn't allow somebody to patent fire just because it'd make them wealthy. And since no exception is made for situations like expatriates using the same techniques in other places, I can't understand what motive there is here but the economic.

What am I missing, here?

EDIT: I could buy a decision to add a geographic origin symbol akin to the trademark one or something. That seems like it would suit the needs of everybody involved.

[andrea]

what you are missing is that many things which became generic on the american side of the pond, are not and were never considered generic on the european side.

It is not that we commonly call all hard cheese parmesan , but evil bureaucrats keep companies from calling it such.
It is that should you call any hard cheese parmesan, you are going to get some quite odd looks from everyone around you.

basically: it is true that names which became generic might reasonably be unrestricted. But right now we have a clash between 2 cultures in which generic names don't match. Also, we care about our cheese.

[Helgoland]

You're not missing anything, you've already identified the core argument:

The only real argument I understand for that is that consumers can reasonably have some expectation that a product called "champagne" was, in fact, produced in Champagne, or whatever. For products whose names have long since become generic, though, that doesn't really apply.

Champagne is sparkling wine produced in the Champgne, regardless of what Americans may think. Parmesan is a specific kind of cheese from a specific region, not just any finely grated hard cheese. Kölsch is a beer satisfying the criteria of the Kölsch convention, and nothing else. Those are the definitions, and Europe collectively does not give a shit whether Americans are too ignorant to apply them properly or not. Backing down on this point wouldn't just mean bending over for the US, it would mean supplying the lube and setting up a video camera as well. And no, some symbol of origin won't cut it, I'm afraid - putting 'Parmesan' on non-parmesan grated cheese is lying to the customer, nothing else. The only sensible solution that I can see is to get American producers to use '[protected term]-style' instead of '[protected term]'.

[Bauglir]

Okay, so if we're agreed that it's not about cultural heritage or anything like that, but about ensuring that consumers' beliefs about what they are purchasing align with the reality of what they're purchasing, I don't see the issue. Certainly, then, Champagne must come from Champagne in markets where consumers understand the word to suggest a location of origin; meanwhile, in markets where the word has become a generic label, the same product may be marketed by a different name. Different names for the same product are hardly a problem; after all, it's permissible to translate "wine" to the local equivalent. Obviously, an American wine marketed in France shouldn't be referred to as a champagne, no matter its actual qualities.

It's hardly ignorance to exist in a different culture, and it's hardly backing down to accept that different cultures use words differently.

EDIT: If I've fundamentally misunderstood the argument and the point is to make exactly what I just said happen, that's fine, and I'm a dumb. I've understood the push to be for a globally-enforced, uniform rule, so that for instance you couldn't market an American wine as champagne even in America, where it's clearly untrue that the term carries connotations about the location of origin. If that's not actually on the table then, yeah, I done goofed.

[Helgoland]

It's hardly ignorance to exist in a different culture, and it's hardly backing down to accept that different cultures use words differently.

It may not be ignorance to exist in a different culture, but it certainly speaks of a certain ignorance or lack of culture to disregard such distinctions. It's issues like this one that help perpetuate certain stereotypes about US citizens.

Also I'd've hoped you'd've seen by now that this is very much a cultural heritage issue when seen from the European perspective. How are you gonna explain to an Italian cheese maker, or a French winemaker, or a German brewer, that some faceless corporation is going to produce something roughly similar in some low-wage country and sell it under the name that belongs to him and his colleagues, the name that they and their ancestors created and made big, the name that stands for their entire craft, the name that captures the tradition and great rafinesse behind their product? The name that shows the world that they indeed have a distinct heritage and tradition and do not produce just generic cheese, or wine, or beer?

[Bauglir]

How could I possibly have seen that it was a cultural heritage issue when you explicitly denied that that was the case? I'm trying to explain how I see the situation, but don't mistake that for me being an ideologue; I am legitimately interested in being refuted, here. Because a lot of people who seem to have a pretty decent grasp of how to behave care very deeply about this, which suggests to me that there's probably some worthwhile reason here. I just haven't heard it put to words.

So, again, what's the argument here? Is it the truth of language? Is it protecting a cultural heritage? Is it economic gain? Pick one or all or some other argument and support it. Write an essay, not a speech; I don't want any of this "how would you explain" stuff.

I'd explain the same way that I would that they have no monopoly on the words "cheese", "wine", or "beer" or any language's variants of them; I'd explain that in places other than their own, their location's goods were in the past so popular that they became incorporated into the very language, so that to the American speaker "champagne" literally means "sparkling wine". I would congratulate their ancestors on having such a profound impact on our own culture, and thank them for their continued dedication to the craft, and for their superior quality to our knockoffs, but I wouldn't destroy that contribution for the sake of salving their egos today. To do so would be an insult to the ancestors they claim to venerate!

But we can spend all day on platitudes like this. Make an argument, not an appeal to an emotional attachment I obviously don't have, for if I did I wouldn't be asking about this. Convince me. The world does not turn on Europe's opinions, any more than it does America's, nor should either of them have the power to create a global monoculture.

The problem with enforcing the geographical indication only for countries where they hold any connotation is... well, first, how the hell do you enforce whether a term carries connotations or not in a country, and two, this would require the changing of names of a product depending on where it is sold. That is logistical hell.

It'd be fairly reasonable to commission a survey for any product that a group cares to press suit on, and changing the name of a product depending on where it is sold can't be that much of a logistical nightmare because businesses already do that. It's called translation. It's often required for labels and such so that the information on them can be read by local people. In fact, many products have entirely different packaging, or even different recipes!

[Bauglir]

That is a situation I'd be perfectly happy with, yeah. And if that's tolerable to the average European, there's probably no real disagreement here.

EDIT: Basically, I'm happy with any solution that offers a mechanism for cultures that have already adopted a protected term as a generic to continue doing so. Technically, I also want the same feature for the future, but it's less likely in the future for that sort of adoption to happen once the protection is in place, over terms that aren't already subject to trademark, that it's a small enough point that I'd be willing to cede it in negotiations or something. And the solution Ispil just outlined actually already has that feature, too.

[Bohandas]

Parmesan is a specific kind of cheese from a specific region, not just any finely grated hard cheese.

I agree with the first part of that argument but not the second. As long as it is that specific kind of cheese I don't see what difference it could possibly make whether it's produced in Italy or America or Austrailia, or somewhere deep in the Kuiper Belt