Trademark case: Interprofession du Gruyère v. U.S. Dairy Export Council, USA

A long legal battle over the status of “the greatest of all cheeses,” comes to an apparent end.

A federal court in Virginia correctly relied on standards of identity written by the Food and Drug Administration to conclude that the word GRUYERE was not entitled to geographical trademark protection, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has held. The court, affirming a grant of summary judgment to a consortium of American cheesemakers against a challenge from their Swiss and French counterparts, also found that the district court’s decision was supported by evidence of gruyere consumption from other regions—including domestic production—as well as by multiple references in the media to gruyere as a generic product (Interprofession du Gruyère v. U.S. Dairy Export Council, March 3, 2023, Gregory, R.).

Case date: 03 March 2023

Case number: No. 22-1041

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.