SHARED-USE TRADEMARKS FOR THE GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS 163 lines as the aforementioned provisions, measures are laid down in Law 9/2006, of 30 November, on Food Quality in Aragon [(art. 29(6)]15 and in Law 10/2007, of 26 November, on the Protection of the Origin and Quality of Andalusian Wines [art. 11(5)16 and (6)17 and art. 46(1)(b)18]. The situation changes at the state level concerning the legal criterion adopted after the approval of LDOIGP in 2015, which, based on state competences in the field of industrial property and considering previous case law decisions, establishes two crucial measures regarding the regulation of this issue. As such, Chapter III (Protection of Protected Designations of Origin and Protected Geographical Indications) contains the following rule: “operators of a given PDO or PGI may not be required to use trademarks exclusively for the products of that PDO or PGI. In any case, the description and presentation of the products of that operator shall contain sufficient identifying features to avoid misleading or confusing the consumer” [art. 13(7) LDOIGP]. The rule’s wording on shared trademarks changes its format, becoming a prohibition addressed to the management bodies of geographical indications themselves. This entire article was amended by final provision 1.2 of Law 1/2014, of 19 March, which changed the original wording, which was as follows: “Likewise, in order to ensure compliance with the principles listed in article 10, the competent body of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock shall examine the proposal for regulations submitted by the v.c.p.r.r.d. management body, paying particular attention to the limitation of the origin of the wine, in order to ensure that the principles listed in article 10 are complied with, with special attention to the limitation of the use of the brands by the wine operators registered with it, and only the Regional Minister of Agriculture and Livestock may authorise the use of a brand with a level of protection to be used for the marketing of wines that do not enjoy that level of protection”. Furthermore, article 50(1)(b) considers as an infringement “the failure to include on the labels and presentation of wines sufficient elements to clearly differentiate their classification and origin, in order to avoid consumer confusion arising from the use of the same trademark, trade name or company name in the marketing of wines corresponding to different levels of protection or coming from different geographical areas”. 15 Thus, this provision establishes that “in the event that the same brand, trade name or company name is used for the marketing of a product with a quality geographical designation and another or others of a similar kind that do not have the quality designation, sufficient elements must be introduced in the labelling, presentation and advertising of these products to enable the product with the designation to be clearly and simply differentiated from the product without it in order to avoid, in all cases, unfair competition between operators, as well as confusion among consumers”. 16 Paragraph 5 establishes that “any other type of marks, symbols, emblems, advertising slogans or any other type of advertising used on wines entitled to a protected geographical name may not be used, even by the owners themselves, in the marketing of other wines, unless it is understood that its application does not cause damage to the protected wines, being the person in charge of the competent regional ministry for agriculture and fisheries who may authorise the use of such trademarks”. This paragraph was amended in 2011 by Law 2/2011, of 25 March, on agri-food and fisheries quality of Andalusia, which contains a similar prohibition in its article 8(2). 17 This paragraph states that “operators in the wine sector must include on the labels and presentation of wines, in addition to the compulsory indications laid down in the rules in force, sufficient information to differentiate simply and clearly their classification and origin, and to avoid, in any case, any confusion on the part of consumers”. 18 Among the very serious infringements [art. 46(1)], point (b) provides for “failure to include on the labels and presentation of wines sufficient information to clearly distinguish their classification and origin in order to avoid confusion arising from the use of the same trade mark, trade name or business name in the marketing of wines corresponding to different levels of protection or coming from different geographical areas”.
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