As we say up here in Yorkshire when things don't go our way
Edam
The EU's highest court has rejected an attempt to use copyright law to protect the distinct taste of a food product. The court explained that taste is too subjective to allow a work to be uniquely identified, even using science, so it cannot be protected. The Court of Justice concurred with the expert opinion offered in July …
Let me tell you about latex...
Technically, latex is a sol (solid marticles in a liquid medium), whereas cream cheese is an emulsion (liquid-in-liquid). Both are colloids, but then again, so is smoke.
Latex can cross-link to become rubbery, in which case it forms a gel (liquid in solid). If your cream cheese does this, I'd suggest it's time to throw it out. Although technically soft and medium-hard cheeses are probably gels as well to some degree or another.
As someone who's spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, they take their cheese very seriously there. The choice and quality of the cheeses there tends to exceed what you generally find in Britain. If you lived abroad and your only experience of British cheese was mild cheddar, you might conclude that our cheese is rubbish too.
"If you lived abroad and your only experience of British cheese was mild cheddar, [...]"
The "Magasin Anglais" in Luxembourg in the 1980s sold some English foods for which ex-pat EEC workers had a craving. The popular cheese was Cheddar. However - the frozen Mother's Pride white sliced bread was only bought by Americans. The Brits sensibly bought the daily fresh bread from a boulangerie.
@Wyrdness - nonsense. We in Blighty have many wonderful cheeses: see for instance our superb local cheese shop.
And at the bottom end, I'd take a cheapo Sainsburys or Lidl cheddar over any of the Dutch cheeses sold in Blighty any day. Or for an outside perspective, I'd take the cheddar I could get when I lived in Germany over the Dutch cheeses available there, too.
(n.b. Happy to accept that good Dutch cheeses exist and that some of you have experienced them. A story like German wine? They have some nice stuff, but you wouldn't think it based on the crap they export to us).
They (the Jormans) have some nice stuff, but you wouldn't think it based on the crap they export to us.
Well, that's largely true for most of the wine that the UK imports! But German wine has significantly improved from the days of Blue Nun and Black Tower (neither of which I've ever seen here). Like many European winemakers, they benefitted enormously from the expertise and techniques that the Australians brought to the business. The sparkling wines from my vintner have bee given the thumbs up by all my sister-in-laws.
Like many things, the Dutch have optimised their production processes for an international market that has no taste. This is as true for their water masquerading as beer (Heineken) as it is for the equally ubiquitous and equally bland Gouda. But they can and do and make and mature proper cheeses.
As a kid we had to suffer red balls of Edam because my mum basically doesn't like cheese. Strange thing is I've never seen these abominations in any of the provinces and certainly not in Edam itself, which is a lovely little cheese.
Given a choice I prefer a strong, crumbly Cheddar or a French, non-dairy (sheep, goats) cheese but my local farmer's market does a nice line in Dutch-style cheeses with fenugreek or mustard seeds.
However, elsewhere I noticed there's been another legal campaign against the roquefort mould that gives us our lovely Stilton.
The synaesthesia possible cross-coupling of various senses can also include taste.
I followed the link to the story about Aldi "rip off" products.
What a load of.. hand-wringing. Yes, in a sense they are knock-off products. But no one would legitimately be confused with the originals. Side by side you know you are buying a product modeled after the original. The only confusion might be which is the original, but that isn't what trademark is intended to protect.
Aldi don't stock the things they copy so they're not "side by side".
I'm not convinced what Aldi are doing is wrong mind, but when it's massive corporation vs small business my gut feel is to favour the small business.
@EveryTime
It seems unfair for the Mail to single out Aldi for selling similar looking products, as all supemarkets have been doing it for decades. But then, it's rather obvious that if you are selling ketchup, you're probably going to have a tomato on the label, or in the more specific case, that chicken sausages might come in a packet that is a similar colour to a roast chicken. PR luvvies think they are clever creating a brand, when it's an obvious set of attributes plonked on a label.
@WylieCoyoteUK
The only case against a retailer I can recall was Poundland vs Toblerone, all of the other copycat cases seem to go unpunished. I guess this is because brands know suing a supermarket chain would be be suicide, as the chain would stop stocking all the brands wares, and the brand would lose a lot of revenue. In the Poundland case, I don't think the makers of Toblerone saw a downside there.
> The large supermarkets often bring out "own brand" versions of new products, copying the product and packaging, but seldom the quality.
In my experience, own brands are usually quite easy to distinguish, but are by no means always inferior quality - surprisingly often they are are better.
The major supermarkets have expensive legal teams to ensure their "own brand" products (competing with major manufacturers' products) stay (just barely) on the right side of counterfeiting law. (Apart from the "bottom range" ones, that are designed to look like disaster relief handouts to persuade you to buy something nicer.)
And even if they are made for the supermarkets by a major manufacturer, you can bet your backside that they will change the recipe to make the supermarket's version "not quite as good" in order to protect their brand.
I'm not sure I understand that bit - since now the matter has been settled at the highest EU court, isn't the result available to every courts all across the EU? Won't that lead to a more consistent application of laws, without the need to drag the case though each country's judicial system first?
The decisions of the Court are very much legally binding - that's the point. The top tiers of the court are legally binding while the third tier, the CST (the Tribunal) is not.
This might help: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldeucom/128/12805.htm
Witte wieven translates to white women, not wise women. It’s actually a nickname/folktale referencing the fog from the canals that, when rising up across the meadows looks ( in the dark ) like white women climbing out of the canal coming to drag the weary walker in the canal.
Many a walker in the 1800s who had fortified himself before a long cold walk would encounter these white women and depending on his level of fortification may have ended up in the drink.
Has political correctness creeped in to El Reg me asks? Can’t seem to attribute colour of skin or “whiteness” to anything out there in Lalaland anymore. It’s sadly taken as an offence instead of being seen as simply descriptive.
Reminds me of how we renamed White Russia to become Belarus, the actual localised name of the country. Why did we do this? After all we still call it its neighbour Poland not Polska for example.
Bela still means white and Rus still refers to Russia. Politically expedient but logically pointless because the country name has not changed.