54 WINE LAW supplemented by the Member States’ domestic laws, through additional protection to wine designations. This issue was dealt with – and resolved along the lines proposed by some scholarly studies32 – in Judgement of the General Court (Fourth Chamber) in Case T-659/14 of 18 November 2015. The parties were Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto (Douro and Port Wine Institute) and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) – as of March 2016, OHIM changed into the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). As it was the legitimacy of the registration of the brand name Port Charlotte, applied for by a British distillery, which would be a coadjuvant in the case, the judgement is known by that name. The initial judgement issued by the General Court of the European Union in 2015 will be referred to as Port Charlotte 1, whereas the ruling delivered on appeal by the European Court (Second Chamber) on 14 September 2017, which overrules the previous one, will be referred to as Port Charlotte 2. We will deal with the case background first and then with the various solutions provided by each court. In 2007, the then OHIM registered the brand name Port Charlotte as a category 33 product – “alcoholic drink”, as defined by the Nice classification of products and services applying for trademark recognition within the European Union. In 2011, the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto submitted to the Office an application for the annulment of this trademark following the relevant articles in Regulation No 207/2009, regarding trademarks within the EU. The distillery was prompted to limiting the trademark registration of those products labelled as whisky. The Portuguese claimant invoked the protection afforded to the Porto and Port DOs by various regulations within Portuguese law and by the relevant article in the Regulation in force at the time (Council Regulation No 1234/2007). Briefly, Portuguese law prohibits the use of a designation – for different products as well – as long as the use of that name brings an unfair benefit from the distinctive nature or prestige of the protected name. However, according to Regulation 1308/2013, the registered brand name is afforded protection against “(a) any direct or indirect commercial use of that protected name: (i) by comparable products not complying with the product specification of the protected name” established for that use [art. 103(2)]. Both the OHIM Annulment Division and afterwards its Fourth Chamber of Appeal dismissed the request for annulment, the former holding that the protection of wine DOs is regulated exclusively by the European Regulation and lies strictly under the exclusive remit of the European Union so that they are 32 RIBEIRO DE ALMEIDA, A. (2010). Autonomia jurídica da denominação de origen. Uma perspectiva transnacional. Uma garantía de qualidade. Wolters Kluwer-Coimbra Editora, Coímbra, pp. 398-399.
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