Over the past decade, coffee producers have been struggling with the world market’s low and unstable coffee prices. Some coffee producing countries try to overcome this crisis by moving from pure commodity exports to higher-price exports of niche market quality products, like “single-origin coffee”, protected by intellectual property tools. Such protection can take the form of trademarks or geographical indications. At present within the single-origin coffee sector, a trend to use the latter form can be observed. For example, “Café de Colombia” was registered as a Protected Geographical Indication under Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006. Another recent example is the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative. In order to protect its... |