In Sociedad Agricola Santa Teresa Ltda. et al. v. Vina Leyda Limitada, the Federal Court considered what constitutes a place of origin for wine such that the place name cannot be registered as a trademark. At issue was section 12(1)(b) of the Canadian Trade-marks Act which states that a trademark is not registrable if it is “clearly descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive” of the “place of origin” of the wares or services.

Vina Leyda Limitada applied in 2001 to register LEYDA as a trademark and on the evidence before the Registrar in an opposition to such application, the Registrar allowed the application. The Sociedad appealed the Registrar’s decision under section 56 of the Act.

The Court allowed the appeal and held that LEYDA could not be registered. According to Harrington J., “Once the Registrar found as a fact, as he did, that Leyda is a wine producing region in Chile, as a matter of law he was required to conclude on the record before him that the opposition was well founded.” Of concern was the fact that if the registration stood the applicants, wine producers from the Leyda Valley, would not be able to refer to that fact on their labels or in their promotional literature and might be limited to calling their wine Chilean red or white. The judge also noted that “producers from a specific region want to promulgate their area in the belief that their wine is superior to the wine of that country as a whole”. A general appellation could lead a consumer to believe a wine is “plonk”.

In reaching his decision Harrington J. relied on a 1970 Supreme Court of Canada decision, Home Juice Co. v. Orange Maison Ltee, for the proposition that “a shrewd trader should not be permitted to monopolize the name of a foreign wine district in Canada by registering it as a trademark”. He also distinguished Prosciutto di Parma v. Maple Leaf Meats Inc. in which the Federal Court of Appeal refused to expunge the trademark PARMA since it had been used in Canada for 39 years and registered for 26. LEYDA had not been in use in association with wine in Canada at the time the application was filed.

On an appeal under section 56 the parties may introduce evidence that was not before the Registrar and the Sociedad put forward that “Vallee de Leyda” was an appellation of origin in Chile. This evidence was taken into account, but Harrington J. specifically noted that whether a name signifies a geographical area under section 12 of the Act and whether that area produces wine are not contingent upon a governement decree.

Finally, it is worth noting that Harrington J. may very well know something about wine. He not only references the origin of the word “plonk” (“There are different legends as to the origin of the word ‘plonk’. The one I prefer is that a Monsieur Plonque was the purveyor of cheap wine to British Troops in World War I.”), but he also begins his reasons stating, “One may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but one should know something about a bottle of wine from its label; the more the better.”

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