Recently two companies have been in the news, trying to protect the name of their product. One is Fonterra, the biggest dairy company in New Zealand which owns Mainland cheese. One of their cheese products is called Vintage. Another small cheese company has been calling their cheese Vintage Gouda for many years. Now Fonterra says they cannot use the word “vintage” because Mainland has the trademark. However, “vintage” is a word which can mean very good because it is old. For cheese it means it is 18 months old. Many specialist cheeses are called vintage but now Fonterra says they cannot use that word. Fonterra has the intellectual property rights to that word.

　　Also in the news is Radler beer. This is a type of light, fruity beer which came from Germany. A small brewery in Dunedin wanted to call their radler-style beer “Radler” but the big company, DB Breweries has the intellectual property rights to this name.

　　Many years ago, many countries used to call their sparkling wine “champagne”. However, the word “champagne” belongs to the Champagne region of France. That region owns the trademark. Now, we just call our sparkling wine “bubbly”. “Would you like a glass of bubbly?”

　　Listen to July 18 2011 to hear about cultural property rights.

　　Questions

　　1. Do you think the protection of their trademark is fair in these three examples?

　　2. What can a small company do if a big company stops them from using that word in a product name?

　　3. Why do we have intellectual property rights laws?