Trade-Marks Clearly Descriptive Of Geographical Origin Are Not Registrable

In Sociedad Agricola Santa Teresa Ltda. and Vicente Isquierdo Menendez v. Vina Leyda Limitada, the Federal Court considered the scope of paragraph 12(1)(b) of the Trade-marks Act (the Act). This paragraph provides that a trade-mark is not registrable if the mark is (when written or sounded) "either clearly descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive in the English or French language of the character or quality of the wares or services in association with which it is used or proposed to be used or of the conditions of or the persons employed in their production or of their place of origin."

Vina Leyda Limitada, a wine producer from the Leyda Valley region of Chile, had applied to register LEYDA as a trade-mark for use in association with wine. Vina Leyda's application was opposed by Sociedad Agricola Santa Teresa Ltda. and Vicente Isquierdo Menendez, each of which are wine producers from the same region