This document discusses international trademark battles between France and other countries over the names of certain foods and wines. Specifically, it summarizes France's successful lawsuits preventing other countries from using the names "champagne" and "Roquefort" for their sparkling wines and blue cheeses unless they met certain standards. While trademark protection is understandable, the document argues it can go too far, pointing out that common names like "champagne" had taken on their own meaning beyond just a geographic designation by the 1920s. It also notes the U.S. retaliation against French Roquefort cheese in the 1980s as evidence these naming disputes can engender long-lasting animosity between countries.

1. The Roquefort Files
July 4th, 2012 · Robert Scott Lawrence
Do you remember the big
international trademark battles of yore?
The almost mythical battles that set the
stage for fifty years of international policy
on designation of origin and engendered
the inchoate animosity brought to life in
the tariff battles at the end of the Bush
era? Well, let me refresh your
recollection.
Remember when France sued everyone who tried to sell sparkling wine as
champagne and won? Or when France sued everyone who tried to sell blue
cheese as Roquefort, and again won? Unless you were a member of the
international jet set aristocracy, you soon found that the menu at the
country club had changed, and you were almost in danger of not being able
to order foie gras or pinot noir, or even a nice Camembert without the
possibility of seeing a disclaimer next to the name and an explanatory
footnote at the bottom of the menu. “What’s this?” you might have asked
yourself. “All my life I’ve ordered Roquefort dressing on my iceberg wedge,
and now these lummocking hillbillies are pretending not to understand me
unless I say I want the ‘blue cheese’ dressing? Preposterous.” And your
neighbor across the way no doubt commiserated with you, equally offended
by the wrongness of it all. Perhaps he nodded his head and said “And if the
wife wants a glass of bubbly, now we have to sit through this song and
dance with the sommelier where he inquires ever so politely as to whether
‘Madame would like the sparkling wine from Napa or would she prefer the
champagne from Languedoc?’ I’m surprised he doesn’t ask if I want
the cava from Spain.”

2. While you can hardly fault France for wanting to protect its sacred
gastronomical heritage, at times trademark protectionism seems a bit
overreaching. Wasn’t everyone drinking champagne in The Sun Also
Rises, first published in 1926? Granted, it was set in Paris, but I would
wager my eyeteeth that the American public (and not just the jaded expats)
had one thing and one thing only in mind when they heard the word
“champagne”: bubbly. The public wasn’t thinking French, American,
Spanish, or South American, but only about the alcoholic
effervescence which fueled the Roaring ‘20s and made madcap fools of
wedding crashers everywhere. Call it what you will, champagne was a noun,
not a designation of origin.
Everyone wants their own piece of the pie, but when you have to distinguish
between torta and torte, pie and pasty — when you, in fact, have to call a
Napoleon a “three-layer-breakfast-pastry,” then you have denatured reality
to the point where it is less magnifique than it was and less magnificent
than it should be. Some things simply aren’t the same when you change the
name. Cary Grant isn’t Cary Grant when he’s called Archie Leach. Elizabeth
Taylor may be happy with Liz but don’t try calling her Beth. And don’t tell
me canolli by another name is still canolli – Godfather III doesn’t work if
Don Altobello is poisoned by a puff pastry.
Names have power. America was clearly still mad about the blue cheese
fiasco some four decades after the fact when the administration singled out
Roquefort for a 300% tariff. We might as well have said “Hey France, if you
don’t want our steroid beef, we don’t want your stinkin’ cheese!! How you
like them apples!!”
In fact, now that I think of it, maybe that’s exactly what we said.