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Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Trade Marks might be affected by Proposal to Regulate Nutrition and Health Claims Made of Foods.

I wasn't aware of this but

thanks to the UK-PTO website I now know of the following:

"The purpose of this communication is to draw your attention to the possible consequences for owners of brand names (including registered and unregistered trade marks) of a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on nutrition and health claims made on foods (COM (2003) 424 ).

The proposed Regulation aims to harmonise Community rules on the use of nutrition and health claims on food in order to protect consumers from false and misleading claims and to enable free movement of goods within the Community. It will establish a positive list of permitted nutrition claims and procedures for pre-market authorisation of health claims. In the UK, this will replace the present voluntary system which operates with an agreed code of practice and a system to authorise health claims.

Within the meaning of the Regulation, some brand names may be considered as nutrition or health claims and unless they are "permitted" or have obtained "pre-market authorisation" their use will not be allowed. [...]"

Golly Gosh. I strongly dislike this "nanny" attitude of the EU Commission in nutrition and/or health matters vis-a-vis the consumers which all seem to be deemed incompetent.

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