{"id":46014,"date":"2023-06-27T11:24:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T15:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=46014"},"modified":"2023-09-19T15:12:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:12:13","slug":"whats-in-a-cheese-name-understanding-the-battle-for-gruyere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/whats-in-a-cheese-name-understanding-the-battle-for-gruyere\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s In A Cheese Name? Understanding the Battle for Gruy\u00e8re"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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19th century Swiss engraving<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The music industry likes to fight about intellectual property. Artists need permission to cover or sample a song and pay fees and royalties when they do. This borrowing can boost the popularity of the original song\u2014as happened with Weezer\u2019s take on Toto\u2019s \u201cAfrica\u201d in 2018\u2014 but not always. Rick Astley, whose 1987 hit \u201cNever Gonna Give You Up\u201d is the stuff of meme legend, recently sued a rapper for covering his song so perfectly that it was indistinguishable from the original. Instead of an homage, Astley saw it as a theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does all this have to do with cheese? A musician\u2019s value lies in their authorship. Cheese is a different story\u2014the wheels we know and love have been collaboratively honed by hundreds if not thousands of people over the centuries. But, oftentimes, that honing was done in just one area, whose cheesemakers may not see it as such a group effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American cheesemakers like to riff on other countries\u2019 offerings, making everything from ch\u00e8vre and queso fresco to brie, manchego, and gruy\u00e8re\u2014of course gruy\u00e8re. You don\u2019t need to follow cheese news to have heard the grumblings about gruy\u00e8re. Even the mainstream media covered Interprofession du Gruy\u00e8re<\/a> v. US Dairy Export Council, a case that lasted over a year, underwent multiple appeals, and tackled questions such as: Can a country be an author? And if so, how long is their product \u201ctheirs\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A seemingly final verdict was reached this March, but the fight feels far from over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gruy\u00e8res, Switzerland<\/em> | Photo courtesy of Le Gruy\u00e8re AOP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

YEAR IN REVIEW<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many, the situation began in 2021, when the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied trademark protection for Gruy\u00e8re. But for its Swiss makers, it started a little earlier than that\u2014in the twelfth century, in a town called Gruy\u00e8res, where the legendary wheels were first made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the present day, these Swiss makers joined forces with French producers of Gruy\u00e8re to file a joint appeal of the decision to the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, who also denied them, citing, among other things, the World Championship Cheese Contest\u2019s celebration of gruy\u00e8re from all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This partnership of Swiss and French was an unusual one. The two countries have not always been friends in Gruy\u00e8re\u2014 both carry a country-specific Appellation d\u2019Origine Control\u00e9e (AOC) for the cheese they produce, but Switzerland took issue with France applying for the European Union\u2019s Appellation d\u2019Origine Prot\u00e9g\u00e9e (AOP). The Swiss felt if anyone should be getting a Europe-wide AOP designation, it should be them, and the EU agreed. But this all seems to be water under the bridge now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe application \u2026 was jointly filed,\u201d says Denis Kaser, a representative of the Interprofession du Gruy\u00e8re, \u201cbecause the Gruy\u00e8res region straddles the border of Switzerland and France.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2022, US District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled against the Swiss\/French team, stating that gruy\u00e8re need not come from Gruy\u00e8res, Switzerland, because Americans don\u2019t associate the word with that region. \u201cDecades of importation, production, and sale of cheese labeled gruy\u00e8re produced outside the Gruy\u00e8re [sic] region of Switzerland and France have eroded the meaning of that term and rendered it generic,\u201d he stated in his opinion. (US law does not allow for the trademarking of generic terms.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France and Switzerland filed another joint appeal in December. \u201cWhether Gruy\u00e8re is a generic term depends on how it is understood by a majority of consumers,\u201d their argument stated, specifying that \u201cthe other parties had no evidence as to how Gruy\u00e8re is understood by a majority of consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 3, 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the USPTO\u2019s decision, putting what many saw as the final nail in the coffin of the Swiss\/French hopes of protecting their good name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every wheel of Le Gruy\u00e8re AOP bears the name of the cheese on the rind, or \u201cheel\u201d<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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PDO, DOP, AOC, AOP \u2026 WTF<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

OK, so you\u2019ve wrapped your head around why Europeans put letters at the end of cheese names\u2014they\u2019re geographic indications (GIs), also known as quality schemes, designed to tell you you\u2019re buying the genuine article. But what do all the different letters mean? We made you a cheat sheet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n