52 WINE LAW Chiciak and Fol judgement of 9 June 1998 had declared: “The 1992 regulation introduced the requirement for geographical names to be registered at Community level in order to enjoy protection in every Member State and defined the Community framework which was thenceforth to govern that protection, which is obtained only at the end of a compulsory notification, verification and registration procedure” (section 26). Exclusivity and substitution are reiterated in Judgement of the Court of 7 November 2000 (Warsteiner Brauerei ruling, in case C-312/98, section 50) and, even more categorically, in Judgement of the Court of 6 March 2003, Commission v. France: “However, since the entry into force of Regulation nº 2081/92, the purpose of which is specifically to define the circumstances in which the protection of a name establishing a link between, on the one hand, agricultural products and foodstuffs and, on the other hand, a particular geographical origin may be introduced, protection for designations of origin and geographical indications may now, according to the Commission, be afforded only within the framework laid down by that regulation” (section 13). Concerning the exclusivity, uniformity and exhaustiveness of the European protection system of geographical designations of agricultural products and foodstuffs within that system’s scope, the landmark case, in its own right, would be Judgement (Grand Chamber) of 8 September 2009, the Bud ruling. The Court argued “the question therefore arises more precisely whether Regulation No 510/2006 is exhaustive in nature so that it precludes such national protection and, consequently, also precludes extension of that protection under the bilateral instruments at issue to the territory of another Member State”. The Grand Chamber replied by referencing previous rulings that “the aim of Regulation No 2081/92 is to ensure uniform protection within the Community of the geographical designations which it covers; it introduced a requirement of Community registration in respect of those designations so that they could enjoy protection in every Member State”. Therefore, it finds that the purpose of the European regulation “is not to establish, alongside national rules which may continue to exist, an additional system of protection for qualified geographical indications (…), but to provide a uniform and exhaustive system of protection for such indications” (sections 106, 107 and 114). Accordingly, the European system of designations of origin, as defined by law, becomes the only susceptible of being implemented all across the EU. To put it differently, the only protection system of geographical designations themselves, within the national boundaries, of said protection insofar as their application may not contradict or oppose the provisions contained in the European regulation”.
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