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ARTICLE · 17 JANUARY 2024

When Trademarks And Geography Don't Mix

BCF Business Law
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You are the proud manufacturer of a product or a service originating from your home area, and you wish to highlight its place of origin by naming your product or service after a river, a county, a village, or a neighbourhood?

CanadaIntellectual Property
Sarah Hébert-Tremblay
Sarah Hébert-Tremblay
Johanne Auger
Johanne Auger
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You are the proud manufacturer of a product or a service originating from your home area, and you wish to highlight its place of origin by naming your product or service after a river, a county, a village, or a neighbourhood? Unfortunately, there are many risks in doing so.

The Trademarks Act prohibits registering a mark that gives a clear or false and misleading description as to where the product or service in association with which it is intended to be used originates. If such mark cannot be registered, it means that anyone can use the name of that place of origin for their goods or services coming from that area.

Continent, country, province, state, region, city, neighbourhood and street names can all be considered as geographical places. The Federal Court in the recent case of NIA Wine Group Co, Ltd. v. North 42 Degrees Estate Winery Inc. found that even a latitude or longitude line should be considered as a place of origin. A design trademark consisting of

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