For many, 2020 has been a difficult year with new and unprecedented challenges. While these challenges have required dedication and ingenuity to navigate, we’ve pressed forward knowing that we’re fighting on behalf of farmers, manufacturers and exporters that deserve a fair chance to label their products with common food and wine terms.
CCFN is the only organization fully dedicated to this cause. Your faith in our mission and continued support has given CCFN the resources to lead the way, coordinating among industry stakeholders and leveraging government support to stand up to the EU’s destructive GI agenda. We are grateful to have an incredible list of accomplishments to share from the past year:
- More than 170 Members of Congress signed letters requesting that the U.S. government enhance protections for common food and wine terms.
-
The U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) issued a ruling declaring that gruyere is a generic style of cheese. While the Swiss have appealed this decision, CCFN has already filed a counterstatement to the appeal and will be staunchly defending the action in order to keep “gruyere” generic in the U.S.
- USPTO issued new guidance that will help ensure that generic terms are given adequate consideration and protection.
- The U.S. completed the Phase One trade agreement with China, which creates new safeguards protecting market access for products labeled with common terms.
- We had several wins in our daily pushback on threats to common terms, including a win for asiago and gorgonzola cheeses in Australia.
- We sought to protect common terms under the framework of the EU-MERCOSUR trade agreement, which is currently being negotiated. As a result of this work, several companies were recognized in Argentina and Brazil as previous users of some common food terms.
The items listed above do not even begin to capture the work that CCFN is advancing on a day-to-day basis or the work that lies ahead as we begin to educate new members of Congress and a new administration about the threats to common food terms. We stand together and ready to fight back against any attempt to confiscate these terms.
Stay healthy and have a very joyous holiday season.
Be the first to comment