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Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food?
Techdirt is reporting that Malaysia seems to be jumping on the copyright/trademark bandwagon and attempting to protect the "ownership" of certain ethnic foods. Of course, this may just be a massive PR push in an attempt to grab some eyeballs. "Last year, around this time, we noted that the country of Lebanon was trying to claim that it owns hummus and other middle eastern foods, such as falafel, tabouleh and baba gannouj, and that no other country could produce them. It seems that other parts of the world are seeing the same sort of thing, as Malaysia is trying to declare that it owns popular Malaysian dishes, like nasi lemak."
Because Malaysia has been claiming certain Indonesian dances are Malaysian.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/16/issue-%E2%80%98betawi-group-threatens-harass-malaysians%E2%80%99.html
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
You're not generally allowed to mislabel your products in the USA to make consumers believe that they come from some region that they do not, especially if you do so to mislead consumers into paying a higher price. There exist specific exceptions in regional wine names that are recognized as semi-generics with special rules, and some regional product names that are seen as generics ("parmesan"). You can take your Wisconsin cheese and label it "Parmesan," and nobody will go after you in the United States; but if you label your $5/lb Wisconsin cheese as "Parmigiano Reggiano," that's not cool.
Are you adequate?
It's stupid because of the bit about the recipe and lack of any concession to where ingredients are sourced or whether the production process used is identical.
As an example, historically (and we're talking at least a thousand years, since it gets mentioned in the Domesday Book) Cheshire cheese was manufactured by the same process in no less than five counties; Cheshire itself, plus Denbighshire, Flintshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. The first two of those are in Wales, while the latter two and Cheshire itself are in England. According to the EU rules, only Cheshire cheese which is manufactured in Cheshire itself is now entitled to the name, despite all of the historical precedent to the contrary.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Actually, this is different. In the EU and US, names of food is controlled as trademarks. You can still produce sparking wine in the Napa Valley, but you can't claim it came from the Champagne region.
Of course not, because that would be an outright lie. It was produced in Napa Valley, USA not the Champagne, France, so of course you can't claim it came from Champagne, France.
I think you meant that you can't call California sparkling wine "Champagne", which is true for the reason you outlined.
That said, things are getting pretty dodgy with Wine.
A current problem in BC for example is that less reputable companies are taking grapes grown in wineries in Croatia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and are shipping them to be bottled in British Columbia, Canada and are thus legally and accurately bearing labels claiming 'bottled in the Oakanagan, British Columbia'.
Of course, since the grapes aren't actually grown in the oakanagan, the whole thing is a complete farce. But these wines are ending up on "BC wine lists", and being sold out liquor stores as "BC Wines" I don't know offhand but I wouldn't be surprised if California's good name is being similarly tainted by this practice.
Well, within Mexico, tequila can only be made in the state of Jalisco and a small portion of the state of Guanajuato. It's also only to be made of blue Weber agave, which is a type of maguey. Tequila is a subset of the mezcales, and there are other mezcales, like bacanora. Other mezcales can be made with other types of maguey.
Internationally, "tequila" was granted an OAC in 1977, but the USA doesn't recognize OAC as pointed out in so many other posts. Instead, the USA (and presumably other countries) depend on trade agreements to protect specific names, and that's the case with tequila in the USA.
--Jim (me)