新西兰英语 458 Trade marks

 　　When a company gives a name to a product this is a trademark¹. It means that no other company can use the same name.

　　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 brewery² in Dunedin wanted to call their radler-style beer “Radler” but the big company, DB Breweries³ has the intellectual property rights to this name.

　　Many years ago, many countries used to call their sparkling wine “champagne⁴”. 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?

1 trademark   

n.商标；特征；vt.注册的…商标

参考例句：

• The trademark is registered on the book of the Patent Office.该商标已在专利局登记注册。
• The trademark of the pen was changed.这钢笔的商标改了。

2 brewery   

n.啤酒厂

参考例句：

• The brewery had 25 heavy horses delivering beer in London.啤酒厂有25匹高头大马在伦敦城中运送啤酒。
• When business was good,the brewery employed 20 people.在生意好的时候，这家酿造厂曾经雇佣过20人。

3 breweries   

酿造厂，啤酒厂( brewery的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• In some cases, this is desirable, but most breweries prefer lighter-type beers. 在一些情况下，这是很理想的，但是大多数啤酒厂更倾向于生产酒度较低的啤酒。
• Currently, there are 58 breweries producing Snow Beeracross the country. 目前，全国共有58个雪花啤酒厂。

4 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

• There were two glasses of champagne on the tray.托盘里有两杯香槟酒。
• They sat there swilling champagne.他们坐在那里大喝香槟酒。