This label is weird.
How can you claim a trademark on “Cannubi”? (Note the ® for registered trademark next to “Cannubi” on both front and back labels.)
It’s a long-established term NOT referring to a particular producer, it’s been used by lots of producers for generations and has legal recognition in Italy as a geographical designation. Those factors would seem to preclude a trademark, and so far as I know S&B Borgogno haven’t been suing other producers to bar the use of this term on their labels.
“A trademark is a word, symbol, or phrase, used to identify a particular manufacturer or seller’s products and distinguish them from the products of another” (citation). Cannubi is not a unique identifier of this producer’s wine, or any other producer’s. Under Italian DOC rules, it refers to a shared vineyard. A trademark can’t be a term that’s generic or has been used by others for the same kind of product. The law is designed to protect brands, in effect.
You can’t legally register the trademark Cannubi in the EU. I’m not sure about the US, but it seems unlikely that an Italian producer would seek to do so. I suspect it’s simply ignorance, though are there not potential penalties for falsely representing a registered mark?
It can’t be for the design as that is automatically protected under copyright law.
Rome’s high administrative court, the Consiglio di Stato, has ruled to once again relax regulations to allow producers on 34 hectares (ha) of vineyards to call their wines simply Barolo Cannubi.
Its decision comes just over one year after 11 producers succeeded in restricting use of the term to 15ha of Barolo DOCG vineyards. Under that ruling, those on a further 19ha of vineyards had to add their specific location to labels, such as Cannubi Boschis, Cannubi San Lorenzo, Cannubi Muscatel or Cannubi Valletta.
The only precedent I can think of offhand for the Cannubi trademark is Ceretto’s Bricco Rocche winery. Historically they used Bricco Rocche as a trademarked brand for both their Barolo cru bottlings, Bricco Rocche itself and Prapo. But the Bricco Rocche vineyard is a monopole, unlike Cannubi, so I guess they could claim that it could refer to only their product.
And now they same to have given up the Bricco Rocche brand in favor of Ceretto, though the trademark symbol still appears next to the vineyard name:
They also trademarked Bricco Asili in Barbaresco in the past and used that brand for three crus - Asili, Bernadot and Faset:
They seemed to have dropped the Bricco for their Asili and the trademark claim, as the label below shows. I would speculate that that’s because the Asili is the officially recognized vineyard – there is no Bricco Asili – while Bricco Rocche is legally recognized and they own it all.
None of which explains how those Borgogno folks can put an (R) symbol next to Cannubi.
Possibly, the story is that “Cannubi” is indeed a trade mark though not owned by S&B Borgogno. As you can see here, “Barolo” is trade marked in Australia but the trade mark is owned by the Consorzio so that every Barolo producer can use it.
As an aside, Guido Porro’s labels show a trade mark sign next to “Vigna Lazzairasco” as well as “Vigna S. Caterina”, and I would guess that this trade mark belongs to the firm. But these two vineyards are, as far as I know, monopoles, just like in the Ceretto case.
Hmm. An interesting possible explanation. Does Barolo imported to Australia carry the trademark symbol?
The Lazzairasco and S. Caterina vineyards (delineated in the Slow Food Wine Atlas of the Langhe) are part of Lazzarito as defined in the official scheme. Perhaps the official classification has left room for people to trademark vineyard sub-zones that are no longer legally recognized. I guess if no other producer uses the old names, maybe there’s an argument that they can be trademarked.
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