SAN JOSE, CALIF. Nations seek the sole right to use regional names for specific foods

Producers outside a geographical area couldn't use the area's name.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Generations of immigrants have arrived in America carrying foods that reminded them of home: Parmesan cheese, Darjeeling tea, Basmati rice.
Now, their native lands want these names to be shipped home.
Representatives of 25 nations in Europe, Latin America and Asia are urging that the names of hundreds of specialty foods -- from Feta cheese to Colombian coffee -- be declared legally the sole property of the places where they originate.
For consumers, a change could mean that the mozzarella cheese must come from cows in the region of Latium and Campania, Italy -- not from a Kraft factory somewhere in America. Americans who market the domestic variety will have to think of another description.
The Organization for an International Geographical Indications Network (ORIGIN) met last week in San Francisco to air different perspectives -- and perhaps find common ground -- ahead of the September meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun.
"It is more than a culinary debate. Geographical indications are valuable intellectual property rights," said James E. Rogan, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who, with the World Intellectual Property Organization, sponsored the conference.
ORIGIN members will make their case in Cancun. If they prevail, the result would be an internationally recognized roster of protected food names.
The foods would join wines and spirits, which are alone in being covered by a rule that bans any use of a geographical name by producers outside the designated area.
The United States resists the move, saying that food producers should seek protection through the conventional U.S. trademark system.
Value of a name
What's a name worth? Plenty, said overseas farmers and food manufacturers. It's a tradition, an art, a culture. And they don't want to spend a lot of money in the U.S. trademark process, defending names that are as old as the places they come from.
"It's the clean salty air, the wind that blows in from the Ligurian Sea to the Apennines mountains," said David Biltchik of Consorzio del Prosciutto de Parma, producer of Parma ham.
"It's the time spent with the pigs, so they grow to 350 pounds and produce big hams," he said. "And it's the quality of their food. They're fed the whey from our local cheeses, piped in directly to their pens."
American manufacturers, representing a $54 million specialty food industry, have a less romantic notion.
"It's an overreach," sighed Sarah Fogarty-Thorn of the Grocery Manufacturers of America in Washington, D.C. "It would be expensive and confusing to consumers."
These terms are generic, not proprietary, she said. Swiss cheese isn't a product of a unique confluence of geography and technique, for instance -- it's a mass-produced cheese with big holes in it.
The protections would force a change in food terminology, said Fogarty-Thorn. Familiar products would have to be relabeled. Ad campaigns would have to be revamped. Even labeling like "Parmesan-style" would be eliminated.
No reciprocity
Moreover, the proposal offers no reciprocity to American products. The European proposal doesn't recognize U.S. foods like Monterey Jack cheese, Florida oranges, Idaho potatoes, Vidalia onions or Copper River salmon.
Already, the European Union has created regulations on naming 600 food products, including 150 cheeses. This has triggered a food fight between Denmark and Greece that mirrors the one brewing between U.S. and European specialty food producers. Denmark, which produces more feta cheese than Greece, says it is simply a process of making cheese; Greece claims the cheese is unique to the cows of their nation.