SINGAPORE - The High Court allowed an appeal by an Australian winemakers body and reversed a decision on an Italian wine interest group's bid to register "Prosecco" as coming exclusively from specified regions in Italy.
Justice Valerie Thean ruled that "Prosecco" could not be registered as it contained the name of a plant variety and such a move was likely to mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product.
A product is entitled to protection under the Geographical Indications (GI) Act if it has a specific place of origin and is made to a certain quality, based on factors due to that origin, such as ingredients used.
In decision grounds issued this month, the judge said the relevant question was whether the registration was likely to mislead consumers into thinking that Prosecco wines could originate only from the specified region, when they could be from other geographical locations where the Prosecco grape variety was used to make them.
A geographical indication (GI) would therefore be misleading, and as such unregistrable, if the product could, in fact, come from a different place.
This would be the case if the term contained the name of a plant variety or animal breed which was used to produce and describe the relevant product outside of the place denoted in the GI, said the judge.
An Italian consortium marketing and protecting the use of the term "Prosecco", Consorzio for short, had applied to register the GI at the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.
Australian Grape and Wine Incorporated (AGWI), a representative body for grape growers and winemakers in Australia, opposed the move, noting that Australian Prosecco wines have been available in Singapore since 2015.
In May last year, a principal assistant registrar dismissed AGWI's opposition and ordered that the application should proceed to registration. She had rejected the opposition as she held that the GI was not likely to mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product.
AGWI, represented by a team of lawyers led by Mr Ravindran Muthucumarasamy, appealed to the High Court and argued that Prosecco is the name of a grape variety and thus could not be registered.
Lawyer Sivagnanaratnam Sivananthan and two others countered for Consorzio that the relevant approach was to ask whether the term "Prosecco" was recognised as the name of a grape variety by the average consumer in Singapore.
Justice Thean rejected Consorzio's claim, ruling that on the plain and ordinary meaning of the relevant section of the Act, whether the term "Prosecco" was the name of a plant variety was simply a matter of objective fact to be decided on the evidence presented.
The judge added that Consorzio did not show evidence to assert that "Prosecco" was not recognised by the Singapore consumer as a grape variety.
Consorzio's full name is Consorzio di Tutela della Denominazione di Origine Controllata Prosecco.
