The USA has for over 100 years been an IP/Trademark pirate.

[Arinax]

Actually no it aint. You cannot put a label on a cheap bottle of wine claiming to be from a renown region and price far more money thats a fraud. And todays analysis already can destinguish when such fraudery appears by looking at the H-isotope pattern to identify where the wine is from. The origin is a part of the pricing. This story seems a bit like the "Made in"-story. Just because other countries produce a superior quality/are more renown i cannot simply steal that by just copying the name of the product so its harder to identify rather i have the original or just a copy.

Companies should be renowned for their achievements not for the ones of others

[Starfisher]

This is why pretty much all trademark/trade secret laws require evidence that you have tried to protect your trademark or secret in the past. If you haven't, it's too late to grant protection.

Sorry folks, "champagne" is now a general class of wine, and no longer can reasonably be protected under IP laws, anymore than the descendants of the guy who invented the toilet could try to claim that ONLY they are allowed to call the product of their labors a "toilet". These things time out (thank god) pretty rapidly. Once this is something you can argue about, you've lost.

A more cogent example of IP hypocrisy would be Disney and their practice of ripping off old fairy tales for immense profit while trademarking and copyrighting the fuck out of them. But don't let me interrupt your wine thread.

[Langy]

Actually no it aint. You cannot put a label on a cheap bottle of wine claiming to be from a renown region and price far more money thats a fraud.

Agreed, but things labeled 'champagne' and 'parmesan cheese' are not claiming to be from any regions called Champagne or Parmesan. Instead, they're claiming to be the products known by the generic names 'champagne' and 'parmesan cheese'. If the labels actually said 'made in Champagne, France' you'd have an argument. Unfortunately, that isn't what they say, so your argument is invalid.

EDIT:

My argument basically boils down to 'names based upon origin of the food should not be treated any differently than any other trademark'. There's a reason that trademarks can become genericized, and saying that a specific class of trademarks can't is silly.

[Wargrim]

Quite obviously, there is a big cultural divide here. I dont see how this discussion can lead to anything more than repeating the same arguments over and over again if we stay with the champaign example.

So let us for a moment assume, that because some names like champaign are now in generic use in the US, that you can no longer reasonably expect those regional names to be protected like they are in the EU.

What about stuff that is not yet commonly used in the US? For example, i doubt the Spreewald regional label is known in the US. Would you have a problem with protecting that regional label in the US, so that when you buy something with Spreewald in the name, you know it is an import from that specific German region, and not a replica product with the name slapped on it?

[TESB]

i am too quite surprised that there is such a divide, being European i too am in support of regional products with protected names. maybe Americans are not in favor because they lack products with a strong cultural heritage
(i am just teasing, well maybe i am serious a to a small extend )?

[Starfisher]

Generally speaking, Americans like to believe that we aren't constrained by class or accidents of birth. We love people who come up with new things and better things. Someone saying "champagne can only come from a specific spot in France" sounds to us like "I'm the king because my dad was the king" or "you can't ever do better than what they did 500 years ago". The American cultural myth says such sentiments are bullshit. If I work hard enough, I can do better, be better, whatever. What you call "protecting cultural heritage", we call "avoiding competition with bullshit".

But putting aside cultural speculation, I think the reason a lot of Americans are responding differently is that in the US, unless you actually protect your trademark, you lose it. So if someone wanted to trademark Champagne, they already lost that battle.

Incidentally, another thing Americans like is games with winners and losers and ends, especially when the loser is the French and the end already happened.

[roflmao]

Chinese food in the US isn't real chinese food. It's Chinese food modified to cater to American tastes. That horrible stuff you call "Mexican food" in the States isn't real Mexican either :P.

But just imagine how colossally stupid it would be if Chinese food had to come from China.

(jokes aside, texmex is awesome, it just isn't mexican)

[Starblade]

Generally speaking, Americans like to believe that we aren't constrained by class or accidents of birth.

Honestly, it's more that we just don't care. This label which means high or superior quality is actually factory run off? Who gives a shit.

(jokes aside, texmex is awesome, it just isn't mexican)

Texmex and southwestern don't pretend to be mexican food (well good texmex and southwestern don't). Taco Bell hardly pretends to be food, though I recall an anecdote about them where when they expanded into Mexico they had to have unique menus explaining what the hell a Crunchy Gordita Crunch among other things they made up were supposed to be.

[Hammerguard]

A more cogent example of IP hypocrisy would be Disney and their practice of ripping off old fairy tales for immense profit while trademarking and copyrighting the fuck out of them. But don't let me interrupt your wine thread.

Hmm, I'm surprised no-ones taken the bait offered here - Mickey Mouse, 20 additional years for corporations to protect IP as compared to an individual, governments changing rules?

[Nanaki]

Hmm, I'm surprised no-ones taken the bait offered here - Mickey Mouse, 20 additional years for corporations to protect IP as compared to an individual, governments changing rules?

Welcome to the United States, where, with enough money, you can get away with murder.

[Moe]

Generally speaking, Americans like to believe that we aren't constrained by class or accidents of birth. We love people who come up with new things and better things. Someone saying "champagne can only come from a specific spot in France" sounds to us like "I'm the king because my dad was the king" or "you can't ever do better than what they did 500 years ago". The American cultural myth says such sentiments are bullshit. If I work hard enough, I can do better, be better, whatever. What you call "protecting cultural heritage", we call "avoiding competition with bullshit".

I have to disagree. This entire election cycle is about "class warfare", we have the whole 99%/1% stuff, liberal west coast elitists vs "real" Americans from the heartland. I'm not even going to include racial issues or anchor babies, but given all this I'm not sure how you can make the point that people believe in the absence of constraints by class or accidents of birth. Alaska salmon, Napa Valley wine... those are region-specific labels, are they not? And as far as not improving something from 500 years ago, there are several ads on TV, especially when it comes to alcoholic beverages such as Bourbon, that specifically point out that their recipe has remained unchanged for generations because it's just that good. And of course there's the abnormally high concentration of people who believe that the bible is the one book that has all the answers - that too doesn't fit in with "you can't ever do better than what they did 2000 years ago".

The cultural difference isn't so much that there's an absence of these things in American culture, it's just that it's focused elsewhere.

[Paladin]

I think it's simply a matter of Americans (Or at least this American) feeling that calling your product simply the name of your town/province is stupid. If it's sparkling wine, call it sparkling wine, and put a "Made in Champagne" stamp on it to be clear where it comes from. If you call it the name of your province instead of a descriptive name, don't cry when that name ends up in colloquial parlance as a descriptive term.

Names should simply be descriptive terms. Regional branding is regional branding, it should never be the name of the product. Tide brand laundry detergent doesn't simply sell itself as "Tide", full stop. It says Tide laundry detergent on the box.

Americans are, or at least used to be, by and large pragmatic and utilitarian, and we expect names to be pragmatic and utilitarian. If you present us with sparkling wine and call it Champagne, we're going to assume that Champagne is the french word for sparkling wine, and co-opt the term.

@Moe: Whilst class warfare certainly exists in the US, the ironic thing about it is that the lowest classes, being the most ruthlessly exploited by the free market capitalist right, are generally the fiercest defenders of said free market capitalist philosophy, because they so desperately want to believe the narrative that they can rise from the bottom to the top without any barriers. Both sides of the debate espouse class mobility and deride elitism and the elite, but the left purports to be actively fighting an existing and static financial elite, while the right simply pretends that such impassable divisions do not exist, and are inventions of an academic intellectual elite with no grasp on practical reality.

[Wargrim]

If you present us with sparkling wine and call it Champagne, we're going to assume that Champagne is the french word for sparkling wine, and co-opt the term.

I think Paladin just nailed the essence of this tread in one sentence.

[Paladin]

Basically I have three issues with protected regional product names.

The first has already been brought up... There are many towns and provinces that share names, if we're going to allow products to be named rather than simply branded based on region name, why should Champagne, France be given precedence over Champagne, Switzerland in who gets to decide what sort of wine this new term refers to?

The second is, what if I am a farmer in Champagne, and I make cheese that I think it pretty hot, and I want to call it Champagne? Why do the people who make sparkling wine get to decide what sort of product the name of the region I live in will apply to?

The third is simply jargon bloat. If you make everyone call their products by a descriptive term and use branding rather than completely renaming the product, only people with an interest in that sort of product need to learn what all the brand, type, and quality labels within that overall product group mean. If someone asks me if I want Champagne sparkling wine, then if I hate wine I can safely say no. If someone asks me if I want Champagne, full stop, I have to know what this refers to, and that goes for the ten billion other regional products that have decided that the name of their region will be the name of the product. It bloats the language that the average person has to learn to function to an unacceptable and unnecessary degree.

[RexOmniaLupus]

Part of what's confounding about the champagne issue is that the French producers are attempting to intertwine two different meanings to the word "champagne" - the method of production that results in a certain type of sparkling wine, and the place of production. That kind of wine product is called a champagne because it was originally made famous by producers in the Champagne region. That is what is referred to when something not originating in France is labeled "champagne"; that the product is similar in content and means of production to a wine of the style popularized in the Champagne region. I'm not sure why this is apparently confusing, as nobody thinks a New England clam chowder must be trucked in from Boston, or a Neapolitan pizza has to be air-mailed from Naples. Bourbon has legal requirements for it's content and means of production, but being made in the old Bourbon County area of Kentucky is not one of them, even if the water sources there really do make for the best-tasting bourbon. These apparently region-specific terms are commonly accepted to describe a type of item, not the region of origin.

I don't have a problem with products being labeled with what region they are produced, and no fraud should be allowed that allows a product to claim to be grown/harvested/produced somewhere that it wasn't. But if you're just going to call the whole product by the name of a region, don't be surprised when it develops it's own meaning referring to what kind of product it is and not solely its place of origin.

[Starfisher]

The cultural difference isn't so much that there's an absence of these things in American culture, it's just that it's focused elsewhere.

So the part of my post that's really important is the "like" to believe part.

All those people yelling class warfare are appealing to that exact want to believe. America is just as riddled with class divides and cultural baggage as any European country, it's just that unlike Europe we have this rugged individual myth that is the core of our national narrative. That leads to the various baldly false but bizarrely inspirational Americanisms that drive our culture, stuff like "hard work pays off" and all those five-step books telling people how they too can be Steve Jobs if only they work hard and apply themselves. Bible thumpers are some of the worst when it comes to this. In one breath they'll preach predestination and in the next they'll tell you how they earned everything in life with hard work. They don't contradict my point at all - they're the perfect proof.

It's mostly bullshit, but it's important to understanding why Americans look at stuff like "no we did this 500 years ago and so no one else gets to!" with disdain. Nothing is sacred here if you manage to say "free market" in the same sentence.

[roflmao]

Herbert Gintis has done some great work that shows that liberal cultures are fundamentally more cooperative than pre-liberal cultures among strangers. Liberal cultures have created an environment that, through the respect of institutions, creates trust among strangers.

So, my explanation is that the more commercial and liberal a culture becomes, the more it realizes that, while class divisions exist, cooperation instead of warfare is what works best to heal divides and make everyone better off. This is why cultures that haven't adopted liberalism to its full extent struggle far more with nepotism and corporativism (e.g. latin america and the developing world). If you're part of my tribe or family, cooperation exists. If you're a stranger, different story.

The individualist "work hard and you'll climb to the top" narrative is just a byproduct of a society that condones cooperation among strangers. The narrative might not be exactly true, and might miss the bigger picture, but for me it is a sign that the right mentality is in place.

[Moe]

Tide brand laundry detergent doesn't simply sell itself as "Tide", full stop. It says Tide laundry detergent on the box.

What you mean that tiny thing in the right corner by the warning labels?


Or, even smaller


A recent Tide TV advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNz4A1rMTnA The word "Detergent" is used exactly once. Tide brands itself as Tide, not "Tide Laundry Detergent", just as Pepsi sells itself as Pepsi, not as Pepsi Cola.

[Maktaka]

Incidentally, I find that sort of advertising and labeling to be massively confusing and unhelpful in getting me to consider purchasing the product. Assuming the trademarked product name is the same as what the product does means I can't actually tell what your product does. I remember being massively confused by most of the laundry-related products as a kid because Downy never said it was a fabric softener in their commercials and Tide never said it was laundry detergent. Relying on word of mouth to explain what your product does is stupid.

The same thing is going on now with the blend of body washes, body sprays, hair AND body washes, and other crap meant to make you smell like a frat boy in heat that all gets marketed under identical names. "Axe" and "Old Spice" are not product names, they're trademark names, what the fark does your product DO? Right now I just need a damn body wash that makes me clean, so which one of these identically branded bottles does that? Screw it, I'm buying Irish Spring, at least I know what their stuff does and doesn't do.

[Langy]

What about stuff that is not yet commonly used in the US? For example, i doubt the Spreewald regional label is known in the US. Would you have a problem with protecting that regional label in the US, so that when you buy something with Spreewald in the name, you know it is an import from that specific German region, and not a replica product with the name slapped on it?

This would be perfectly acceptable up until the point that 'Spreewald' becomes a generic term for whatever it is that's being sold. At that point, it should no longer be protected, because it has become a genericized term.

The EU, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that even if 'Spreewald' becomes the generic term for the product, nobody else gets to use that term except the people from Spreewald, Germany.

[scoiatollo]

That's because the actual product is something else and Spreewald is just a "brand" (much like the sparkling wine and champagner discussion)... I really wonder why that's so hard to understand...

I think Arinax nailed it with the "Made in" analogy, it's pretty similar imo. Nobody would consider putting a "Made in the USA" on a product that's getting produced in ie Serbia and not expecting a public shitstorm

[RexOmniaLupus]

Perhaps, scoia, because that is not what it means.

Definition of CHAMPAGNE

1: a white sparkling wine made in the old province of Champagne, France; also : a similar wine made elsewhere

The word "champagne" does not mean "Made in Champagne, France" but refers primarily to the kind of beverage it is. That the word does not apply to non-sparkling wines or other products made in the Champagne region should be a big clue that it is more than a geographic descriptor.

[Langy]

That's because the actual product is something else and Spreewald is just a "brand" (much like the sparkling wine and champagner discussion)... I really wonder why that's so hard to understand...

And brands, if they become the generic term for the product, are no longer protected as trademarks. This happened, for example, with aspirin and kerosene. Both of those were originally brand names, but they eventually became the generic term for the products in question.

I specifically have been saying that 'Champagne' and 'Parmesan' and other designations of region of origin should be treated in the same fashion as brands. You appear to agree with me here, but then completely ignore what this means.

If 'Champagne' or 'Parmesan' become the generic term for their products (and they both have in the US), then they should no longer be considered protected, just like if a brand name becomes the generic term for the product it should no longer be protected.

And just as Paladin said, naming your product after the region it was produced in is a silly idea. Just slap a 'made in Champagne, France' badge on it and be done with it.


Note that the EU partially agrees with this. If a region of origin has already become a generic term for the product (such as cheddar cheese), then it can no longer be added to their list of protected terms. The problem comes with the EU deciding that after it has entered this list, it can no longer fall off it even if the term, in the future, becomes a generic term for the product.

I find this to be a very bad idea in general, because terminology changes over time and making laws that ignore that self-evident fact is a dumb idea.

[scoiatollo]

Okay clarify this for me please, do you have more than one product officially named Aspirin in the US or are there Gernericas which officially have different names and you just call them Aspirin as well because the dominant brand was/is Aspirin? Cause that makes a HUGE difference!

I am still shocked by that practice you seem to have, ignoring the original meaning and just making it the general word for a product category so every company can use it as their product name...

[Maktaka]

For some people, yes, every pain killer is an Aspirin, even those that don't contain the same active ingredient. In the southeast U.S., ever type of nonalcoholic carbonated beverage is a coke (Coca-Cola's headquarters is in Atlanta, Georgia). Because of their dominance in the copy machine industry, some people refer to every photocopied page as a Xerox. For the entire U.S., every facial tissue is a Kleenex. There's even trademark bleed into other product lines: "Google" is the name for the browser for a lot of non-tech-savvy people, even before Chrome came on the scene.

It's extremely common for trademark names to become product names when an individual interacts with a product on a regular basis, but the product market or the individual's experience with the market is dominated by a single company's product. When identifying the name of a item, human beings will use the easiest to remember and/or most frequently encountered term. In absence of absurd groups like L'Académie Française or heavy-handed trademark law to enforce language structure according to government regulations, language WILL develop naturally according to what is easiest for people to use.

[scoiatollo]

Grmbl the edit function doesn't work on mobiles it seems...

Anyway before I left I looked up "champagne" in my ~10year old Oxford's student dictionary, guess what the term champagne does not refer to sparkling wine in general, it just means sparkling wine made in the Champagne. So the real problem here is that you barbarians simply need to learn proper English :P

[Paladin]

The term "Aspirin" was originally trademarked by Bayer, but yes, their trademark was legally revoked by the courts because they failed to defend it, and now anyone who sells acetylsalicylic acid in the US may call it aspirin, and in fact the word aspirin is now considered the colloquial name of that chemical, rather than a brand name.

@Moe: The fact that companies in the US are sliding into the same lunacy that has apparently gripped Europeland for a long time with making up new words to be the names of products does not invalidate my point about jargon creep. The entire point of jargon is to localize the expanded terminology within a specific purview so that the general populace doesn't have to learn eleventy billion new words. Honestly I think that that sort of package design should contribute towards the loss of your trademark, since you're not making it clear that it's a brand and not a description of your product.

Everything should be required to have a descriptive term prominently displayed on its packaging, and all advertising for a product should be required to refer to the product as "X brand [descriptive product name]" or risk the loss of trademark.

[scoiatollo]

So what you two are saying is it boils down.to ignorance and the lack.of proper education... You know I work with mentally handicapped people and they refer to a browser or the web in.general as "google" but most of them have an IQ of 70 and lower to give you some perspective how absurd that looks to me what you are saying here...

[TheWickedGerman]

There is a difference between the people using a well known brand like Aspirin or Kleenex as replacemnt of the actual word for it, and companies officially labelling it. Here to many people use Aspirin or Kleenex for other brands too, but never would companies labelling them as such.

It´s different for Champagne though, if someone here say´s champagne he is meaning the French stuff, and expecting the French stuff if he buys it/orders it. Apparently things are different beyond the big pond, so that explains the different viewpoints on this. Maybe the requirement of re-naming it for export outside the US would be a solution. So they could keep their current method in the US but such brands would be protected elsewhere.

The thing is, when we talking about Champagne, it´s not simply a description of the origin, it´s a also a synonym for high quality and exclusivity. If everyone could call their sparkling wine Champagne, the meaning would be lost. That would be ok if it´s outdated or not used anymore, but that´s at least here in Germany not the case.

[Arinax]

Yeah actually we Europeans use these terms aswell but no company would ever try to label their product with the well known and commonly used name. E.g. "UHU" is a brand name we use as a synonym for glue, but no other company uses that name for their benefit. It is simply deception of the customer using a term related to a region or a product just to be able to jump on the bandwaggon

[Starfisher]

So what you two are saying is it boils down.to ignorance and the lack.of proper education... You know I work with mentally handicapped people and they refer to a browser or the web in.general as "google" but most of them have an IQ of 70 and lower to give you some perspective how absurd that looks to me what you are saying here...

Aha. Right. It's all because everyone else is a moron, and you are the sole guardian of the light of truth.

Language evolves. Period. I reiterate my original example: just because some guy somewhere invented a toilet doesn't mean only his descendants get to call their products "toilets" while everyone else has to call them "water waste removal thrones". Champagne was invented in Champagne, France, and thanks to the evolution of language the term now identifies a category of wine.

And so you lose.

Really, that's all there is to it. Once this happens, you lose your trademark. Sorry, it's gone. Bravo for the wine snobs of Europe for protecting the meaning of champagne, but they didn't do it in the US so they lose.

[GeoffS]

Actually, Champagne is not and never has been a trademark. Krug is a trademark, Mumm is a trademark, Dom Perignon is a trademark, Moet et Chandon is a trademark, Champagne is a description, nothing more. It's probably not even intellectual property in any legal sense since there is no "owner" of the IP.

[Arinax]

Actually "Chamagne" is a trademark. If you are able to read German it is quoted in wikipedia. For those who cant i ll boil it down to the relevant part: Due to the fact that chamagne is a trademark companies in Germany(and other countries) are not allowed to call there sparkling wine chamagne also wine from chamagne switzerland needed to rename their sparkling wine to called Libre-Champ because of the case T-212/02 from the European court. Just because Americans dont give a damn about trademarks does not mean that it is not fought against trademark piracy. Btw. actually the US lost a trial in 2010 that there companies are not allowed anymore to call their products Chamagne. It seems to me American companies just don't care.

Chamagne is a very special form of sparkling wine with very strict specifications which cannot be matched by wines outside the champagne due to the regional aspect, the specific crafting, and of course trademark. I wonder why Americans dont get that. Every European country respects trademarks. There more than 1000 reginonal Trademarks in the EU.

[Langy]

Yeah actually we Europeans use these terms aswell but no company would ever try to label their product with the well known and commonly used name. E.g. "UHU" is a brand name we use as a synonym for glue, but no other company uses that name for their benefit. It is simply deception of the customer using a term related to a region or a product just to be able to jump on the bandwaggon

You are incorrect about this. Countries in the EU have different trademarks that have become generic than the US, but you do still have this process. For example, kerosene is a generic trademark in the EU. Everyone who sells it can call their product 'kerosene' (and they apparently do), not just the American Gas Light Company or the Downer Company.

Same with heroin, dry ice, and petrol. There's a big list of other generic trademarks here.

[Derivative]

Here's a different product named after its place of origin: lebanon baloney. A type of baloney named after the Lebanon valley in Lebanon county in Pennsylvania. If a company started making and selling this baloney and called it lebanon baloney around the area I'm currently in (far from Pennsylvania), I wouldn't go into a rage and demand that it isn't really lebanon because it wasn't made in Lebanon county. I would in fact like that it was being made out in this area because it just doesn't exist out here. Now say I want champagne. But no! I can't have champagne according to your definition, even if there's a company that makes the same thing out here.

[Starfisher]

Your mistake is in not creating a huge hobbyist/snob culture which will defend to the death the quality and uniqueness of baloney made in Lebanon, PA. If you had that, you'd be able to pull off the same basic maneuver.

[Hangfire]

Geoffs.... Oh Geoffs...

Actually, Champagne is not and never has been a trademark. Krug is a trademark, Mumm is a trademark, Dom Perignon is a trademark, Moet et Chandon is a trademark, Champagne is a description, nothing more. It's probably not even intellectual property in any legal sense since there is no "owner" of the IP.

Protected indications are treated as intellectual property rights by the Customs Regulation 1383/2003 (Regulation concerning customs action against goods suspected of infringing certain intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against goods found to have infringed such rights), and infringing goods may be seized by customs on import. Within the European Union enforcement measures vary: infringement may be treated as counterfeit, misleading advertising, passing off or even as a question of public health.

Let me put it this way. Just because you may not recognise that law does not mean it isn't a law somewhere else. Your carte blanche statement across the board is wrong. Factually, legally and in reality.

[Starblade]

But no! I can't have champagne according to your definition, even if there's a company that makes the same thing out here.

You can, you're just getting it from somewhere else.

[GeoffS]

I don't care what some wikipedia writer says, the term "champagne" is not and can not possibly be a trademark under any trademark laws I am aware of. To be a trademark, there must be an owner of the trademark. Tell me, who owns the "champagne" trademark? There are some agreements among EU countries that prevent them from using region descriptors like "champagne" for products from other regions, but that doesn't make them trademarks.

Interestingly, all Australian winemakers have chosen to comply with the EU appellation control guidelines even though they are not legally required to.


Edit: Hangfire, try reading your own links, even if they are only from Wikipedia. Once you have done so, tell me who you claim owns the IP rights to the word "champagne"?

[roflmao]

Texmex and southwestern don't pretend to be mexican food (well good texmex and southwestern don't). Taco Bell hardly pretends to be food, though I recall an anecdote about them where when they expanded into Mexico they had to have unique menus explaining what the hell a Crunchy Gordita Crunch among other things they made up were supposed to be.

Yeah, you're right. That Taco Bell anectode is awesome.
Still, I think the point about food styles varying from their origin depending on the country is valid .


As a more general point, come on, legislation like this would just create a massive lobbying program for special brand protection. Do we really want that?

Cases that intentionally mislead consumers should be handled on an individual basis through common law. Which is what is already done as far as I know.

[Derivative]

Your mistake is in not creating a huge hobbyist/snob culture which will defend to the death the quality and uniqueness of baloney made in Lebanon, PA. If you had that, you'd be able to pull off the same basic maneuver.

Thank goodness that culture doesn't exist, or that'd be really annoying!

You can, you're just getting it from somewhere else.

I imagine it'd be expensive to ship champagne all the way from France to the middle of nowhere where I am. That is if its shipped at all. But why pay hundreds in shipping if the same thing is made nearby?

[ShyGuy]

I would be pissed if I paid for Kobe beef at a restaurant and got the crappy US version rather than the ridiculously high quality Japanese stuff.

I know this is going back into the thread a bit, but I really thought this quote was one of the more interesting ones in the thread when I read it. It very neatly lays out the only reason (IMO) that I, as a consumer, would consider branding products by region to be anything other than just silly (for many of the reasons that Paladin and Starfisher have already elaborated on.) If I'm being misled to believe an inferior product is of higher quality than it actually is due to name "stealing", it's a legitimate problem. After thinking about it a bit more though, I honestly can't really imagine a scenario that relates to the above quote, which results in anything more than a minor inconvenience.

To expand on the example above... say I'm a stereotypical suave European man of worldly knowledge and a penchant for the finer things in life. Taking a vacation in America, I order Kobe at a local steakhouse. However, upon biting into my entree, I immediately spit out the offending piece of flesh, because it is most certainly not what I ordered. After making my plight known to the waiter, I am politely informed that I have indeed received what I ordered, only I didn't order what I thought I did. So I excuse myself and leave the restaurant. Maybe I pay for my salad first. The end. The restaurant isn't going to stop me. They need my $60 less than they want to keep up their customer service record. Champagne is a bit trickier, as I'm sure the cost of good-quality sparkling wine not from the same region could still cost me a pretty penny and the return policy of an open bottle is probably a little less straight forward (especially if I had it shipped from afar for my cellar.) But is there honestly more than a handful of people who care enough about Champagne to know it "should" be from a particular region in France, who don't also know that this rule is not always strictly enforced and takes the necessary precautions to make sure they're getting they right product?

Having said all of that, should a region brand exist or arise, which is rigorously defended, I don't see a problem with it being enforced.

Also, I invoke scoiatollo's rule. If you disagree with me, you are clearly an imbecile. I should know, I've met imbeciles before and they have some of the same habits you do...whoever you are.

[Starblade]

But why pay hundreds in shipping if the same thing is made nearby?

I thought the point was that it's not the same thing because it's not necessarily made to the same standards, like with what Moe said about Kobe beef. That's not to say shitty champagne doesn't exist, I'm sure it does.

[Moe]

For some people, yes, every pain killer is an Aspirin, even those that don't contain the same active ingredient. In the southeast U.S., ever type of nonalcoholic carbonated beverage is a coke (Coca-Cola's headquarters is in Atlanta, Georgia). Because of their dominance in the copy machine industry, some people refer to every photocopied page as a Xerox. For the entire U.S., every facial tissue is a Kleenex. There's even trademark bleed into other product lines: "Google" is the name for the browser for a lot of non-tech-savvy people, even before Chrome came on the scene.

And yet, if you go to the store, you'll find Albertson's EquaLine Painkiller (compare to Aspirin), not Albertson's Aspirin. When you do an online search with yahoo.com their site isn't labeled "google the web now with yahoo!". While the waiter at your restaurant in Georgia might ask you "what kind of coke you want?", when he brings you a bottle of Pepsi, it'll still be labeled Pepsi.

If I'm being misled to believe an inferior product is of higher quality than it actually is due to name "stealing", it's a legitimate problem. After thinking about it a bit more though, I honestly can't really imagine a scenario that relates to the above quote, which results in anything more than a minor inconvenience.

Real kobe beef is very expensive, as is real champagne. Imitation kobe beef is still sold at a higher price than say USDA choice beef, and "champagne" from Napa Valley can also be expensive. When I put down a lot of money to get a high quality product, I expect that high quality, not a knockoff. When I spend a lot of money to buy a premium quality car, I want an Audi, not a Honda Accord with four rings stapled to the grill.

If there were some kind of minimum quality standard that products would have to adhere to in order to be labeled as Champagne or Kobe, then I don't care much about the origin, provided that the end product is of comparable quality.

[Paladin]

Err... I'm not sure you've paid sufficient attention at the supermarket, Moe. I'd say you must be living somewhere different but the last I heard you were actually residing quite close to me so... When I go to the store, I see Bayer aspirin, Ecotrin aspirin, St. Joseph's Aspirin... Walgreens and CVS/Rite Aid both sell their store brand aspirin as just "Aspirin" without even a brand name really. Ecotrin packaging says "Enteric Coated Aspirin", St. Joseph's says "St. Joseph's Aspirin", Anacin says "Aspirin + Caffeine".

Aspirin is no longer trademarked, it is a common word which means acetylsalicylic acid. Products which contain or solely consist of this drug may refer to it as "aspirin" on the packaging, and almost always do.

Seriously, go to drugstore.com and type "aspirin" into the search bar, and see all the packaging.

[scoiatollo]

To go back to my example, you really wanna put yourself on the same level as someone who had practically no proper education, has a diagnosed mental illness and is therefore incapable of learning to use the right words? Excuse me to expect better from the world than that...

Labelling a product as something it clearly is not is fraud no matter how you look at it (and don't come me with the word champagne changed over time, it still has it's original meaning as well!). If you are okay with being fooled well suit yourself I'd say. Also thanks Moe for clarifying that, I'd have been even more shocked if companies would be able to steal brand names just because they are used as a general term by the majority.

edit: and now my hope is crushed by Paladin...

[Starfisher]

Stop being a dick or stop posting.

[scoiatollo]

You mean besides that using a word that clearly describes a certain product (no matter if it's Kobe beef, Aspirin, champagne, etc) as a substitute for a whole product category and companies being allowed to use a well established (brand)name for their own product to boost their sales, because the majority is considered not to be able to make their own choice based on the quality, is just wrong?

If I draw a painting, sign it with Picasso and sell it at an auction I'd be charged with fraud, if companies are doing that on a bigger scale it's alright?

[Starblade]

No, he means stop comparing people who disagree with you to the mentally disabled.

[Langy]

To go back to my example, you really wanna put yourself on the same level as someone who had practically no proper education, has a diagnosed mental illness and is therefore incapable of learning to use the right words? Excuse me to expect better from the world than that...

Labelling a product as something it clearly is not is fraud no matter how you look at it (and don't come me with the word champagne changed over time, it still has it's original meaning as well!). If you are okay with being fooled well suit yourself I'd say. Also thanks Moe for clarifying that, I'd have been even more shocked if companies would be able to steal brand names just because they are used as a general term by the majority.

edit: and now my hope is crushed by Paladin...

What about 'petrol' and 'kerosone'? Or even 'heroin'? All of these were brand names and are now the common name, and all of them are sold as that common name in Europe (though, admittedly, heroin generally isn't sold under any brand name, being generally illegal).