Appellations of Origin

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”) approved a winery’s label for its ELOUAN pinot noir. A class action under California’s Unfair Competition Law was brought alleging that the label’s references to Oregon’s Coasts were misleading, as while the grapes came from Oregon, the wine was created in Napa, California. Defendant moves to

The botom video was made by a Starbucks representative and the top video is from Arnold and Porter, which represents the Ethiopian government.
A Law.com article discussing the dispute is here.
The trademark issue (as opposed to the overall business issue) is that Ethiopia filed for standard trademark, as opposed to certification mark, protection

sidamo.jpg
SIDAMO and HARAR are coffee growing regions in Ethiopia. It appears that those terms are widely used to refer to the beans grown in those regions. The Government of Ethiopia filed U.S. trademark applications for those terms. As far as I can discern from the PTO website, these are registrations for ‘regular’ registrations on the