The rooster symbol cannot be used to identify other wines than Chianti Classico. This was established by the European court, confirming the decision with which the EU office for intellectual property (Euipo) had rejected the request for registration of a similar trademark by a Roman company, which shows a colored rooster with the associated word Ghisu . “Taking into account the image of excellence and prestige associated with the earlier Chianti wine brand – explains the court – the use of the requested brand could generate an undue advantage in favor of the applicant company”.
To reconstruct the story is the consortium of Chianti Classico. In September 2017, a company in Rome requested the EU Intellectual Property Office to register an image similar to that of the Black Rooster, the historic symbol of the Chianti denomination. The Tuscan consortium opposed: from the Appeals Commission of the Trademark Office, the proceeding in 2020 moved before the EU court which confirmed the commission’s decision and rejected the proposed trademark. “We applaud the ruling of the European court – said the president of the Chianti Classico wine consortium, Giovanni Manetti – which makes us even more aware of the communicative power of our figurative brand, but above all of the excellence that our denomination represents in the world“. The black rooster appears as early as the end of the 1300s as the coat of arms of the Lega del Chianti, a political and military alliance created by the Republic of Florence in 1384 with the mission of defending and administering the Chianti area.
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This is not the first victory of the Chianti Classico in the field of legal protection of its brand. The European courts have already reaffirmed the protection of the black rooster on several occasions, and 61 times in the last 15 years the trademark offices around the world have recognized the same principle expressed by the EU court. “Today’s decision recognizes and protects our excellences and thwarts a dangerous attempt to appropriate our historical brands – declared the undersecretary for agricultural policies, Gian Marco Centinaio – it is an important precedent for the protection of our products in the future. ‘within the European borders’. According to Coldiretti, in fact, on the global market the imitations of Made in Italy agri-food products exceeded the value of 100 billion in the year of Covid: “The claim to use the same symbols for profoundly different products is unacceptable – let the association know of farmers – and represents a deception for consumers and unfair competition against entrepreneurs. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than two out of three made in Italy agri-food products are fake, without any productive or employment link with our country “.