"Anheuser Busch v. Budĕjovickỳ Budvar" Decision of the Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy (Corte Suprema di Cassazione) 30 November 2021-Case No. 27874/2020

A geographical denomination remains in full force and effect, and indeed for any purpose - both for trade marks and for protected geographical indications - as long as its renown persists, even if it is no longer officially used. Past names of places or entire regions, which differ from their current one, but have remained in common linguistic usage and are still known by people, are to be considered as geographical denominations capable, accordingly, of indicating to consumers the origin of a given product. A trade mark is invalid due to the market distortion caused by misleading consumers who are led to believe that the product offered comes from a particular geographical region and enjoys the benefits for which a region is known when this implied geographical link does not exist in reality (here it is sufficient if consumers link the word "Budweiser" with a certain region of Bohemia known for the quality of its beer, without any need for the reference public to also know the actual endoethnonym). And this, regardless of the fact that an intellectual property right in respect of the name of a geographical area may belong to anyone. A trade mark cannot be validly registered if the prior sign is still deceptive and a distinction cannot be made between assessing the deceptiveness of a de facto prior trade mark and that of a trade mark registered subsequent to such prior use with reference to the same moment in time. A trade mark validly registered in the meantime by a third party does not lose validity if, subsequently, the prior trade mark ceased to be deceptive.