‘Cheese with Holes’: Gruyère's IP Woes in the US

According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Gruyère is simply a cheese with holes instead of a cheese exclusively made in the Gruyère region of Switzerland and France, upholding the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s ruling that ‘gruyere’ is a generic description for the cheese regardless of where it was made. Although U.S. dairy associations are pleased with the ruling, many European cheese makers are disappointed.

The decision highlights how different international markets operate. For example, the United States is not a member of the Lisbon Agreement, which gives international protection to geographically protected products. The case was considered under U.S. trademark law and how U.S. public and agencies used the word ‘gruyere’ versus how the word is perceived in Europe.

Finnegan attorney Patrick Rodgers told The World Intellectual Property Review, that, “the successful parties created a comprehensive—and persuasive—record of evidence showing that the U.S. general public who buy or consume cheese primarily understood the disputed term to refer to a general type of cheese, not a cheese made in a specific place in a specific way.” 

Patrick said, “The lynchpin of this evidence consisted of sales records showing ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds of cheese produced outside the Gruyère region of Switzerland and France’, which was sold in the U.S. labeled as such, along with references to common uses of the name in the media.”

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