Thu 26 Oct 2006
I’m not a big fan of trademarking geographical areas, more correctly “Greece has been trying this with “feta” and has succeeded in Europe).
Anyway, this was on the news today: Starbucks under fire over Ethiopian coffee - CNN.com
LONDON, England (Reuters) — British charity Oxfam has accused Starbucks of stopping Ethiopia trademarking two of its coffee bean types, denying farmers potential income of nearly 50 million pounds. Oxfam said the U.S. coffee shop giant, which had turnover of $7.8 billion in the year to October 1, prevented Ethiopia from securing trademark protection for two of its best-known beans, Sidamo and Harar. Had Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, been successful, it would have allowed the country to control the use of the beans in the market, giving its farmers more of the retail price and securing an estimated extra 48 million pounds, the charity said.
You should be able to find a letter from the Ethiopian Embassy explaining it more here. I can see their point and apparently it was an application from Starbucks to trademark a name containing Sidamo (but not asking for exclusive use of it) that motivated them to apply. But I’m a little worried about what “giving farmers more of a retail price” actually entails. Surely these are things that should be worked out at the original contract, controlling resale starts to get you into very dubious territory, but one that is becoming more common in this world of ever-expanding IP rights and controls. Anyway, they certainly have more rights to the name than Greece has in controlling feta.
Reminds me of Peter Pan and how the UK government has granted the JM Barrie play PERPETUAL copyright (remember too, as long as you pay your renewal fees, trademarks can also perpetual) because the proceeds go to a hospital. Yes, it is a good cause (and saves taxpayers’ money) but is that reason enough for bad law? At the very least they could have got rid of the more controlling aspects of copyright law and made it purely monetary, ie you had to give X% of profits made on any derivative work rather than allowing for the full copyright rights which include total veto on whether a work gets published or not. Which means that works like the Lost Girls
[Edit: This got picked up by the SMH today (27/10/06):
Starbucks said it had sent a letter to representatives of the Ethiopian Government on Wednesday, offering to enter into an agreement that would “support and assist” it in developing and implementing a geographical certification program.
“These systems are far more effective than registering trademarks for geographically descriptive terms, which is actually contrary to general trademark law and custom,” the statement said. It said Starbucks never filed an objection to the Ethiopian Government’s trademark application, nor claimed ownership to any regional names used to describe the origin of its coffees.
I am not a big fan of Starbucks, I’ve successfully managed to have never bought anything at their cafes, but I think they are being reasonable here. There has been a long history of refusing trademarks that are purely descriptive, unfortunately this is changing and conventions like TRIPS required its signatories to allow for registration of generic terms that have become distinctive by use. There has also been a long history of not allowing registration of geographical terms (if the product had some real nexus with the term) but as mentioned earlier, french wine producers have been a major factor in rethinking this principle.
There were good reasons for this long history of opposition to the registration of generic terms, mainly it keeps generic terms free to use by businesses which is beneficial for the consumer because those businesses can use terms they understand and know to describe their products and services. It also means that one business is not unduly favoured by being granted a monopoly on a key descriptive term which means a more level playing field. It is quite hard to prove that generic terms have become distinctive and of course, hard=$$$ which means it really is mostly big companies who can do this. I’m really quite annoyed at the way Oxfam has morally blackmailed Starbucks in this way because there are other ways of raising the farmer’s share of profits like the geographical certification that Starbucks is suggesting. They should really keep boycotts for issues that are more black and white.
Geographical certification is a better solution than trademarking or geographical indicators because though it still allows the use of the term in a generic form, there is a way for consumers to identify the “real thing” and pay a premium if that’s what they want. Like parmesan or feta, most consumers just want that type of cheese, they don’t need it to actually come from the specific regions but there are some people who do and are willing to pay extra for a guarantee.]
