Cachaça owner Maria Izabel fights in court with winery – 02/20/2023 – Food

In the city of Paraty, in Rio de Janeiro, the fame of the award-winning cachaça Maria Izabel competes with the curiosity that its creator awakens. At the age of 72, Maria Izabel Gibrail Costa rarely leaves the site where she built the Paratycana still, in 1996. Gray hair tied in a long braid that accentuates indigenous traits, she is famous for only walking barefoot — shoes, only on trips and look at that.

Those who pay R$ 10 to visit the property and buy award-winning cachaças, which cost up to R$ 450 for a 700 ml bottle, will find an artisanal production, which does not exceed 7,000 liters per year —distillation happens only once a year. The whole process is conducted by Maria Izabel herself, from the production of yeast, based on an old recipe that she says comes from her ancestors, to the labels that she glues by hand.

It now awakens another type of buzz in the national beverage market — its cachaça is in the middle of an imbroglio. The Pernambuco group JCPM, owner of 11 shopping malls in the Northeast, the Jornal do Commercio de Comunicação System and a Portuguese winery called Quinta Maria Izabel, is fighting in court with the still to use the same name on the labels of its wines as the cachaça from Parati —Maria Isabel.

It all started in 2013, when Inpi, the Brazilian industrial property institute, received a request to register the Quinta Maria Izabel brand for a wine produced in Portugal, in the Douro region, sold in Europe.

In 2016, almost three years after the opening of the application, the INPI rejected the registration claiming “reproduction with the addition of a previous mark, liable to cause confusion or association between the signs”.

That is, the institute understood that there was already a similar brand in the alcoholic beverages segment — in this case, Maria Izabel cachaça, which made it impossible to register again. The farm of the JCPM Group filed an appeal, but lost again in the second instance. He then tried to reach an agreement with the still.

In July 2022, a representative of the winery made a proposal in exchange for coexistence between the brands. According to Maria Izabel, the company offered “up to R$ 150,000”.

There was no deal. “There are two alcoholic beverages sold in the same sector, there may be confusion”, says the producer of cachaça. “I have no interest in selling or sharing my brand, which is very closely associated with me.”

While seeking the agreement, the farm’s lawyers tried to annul the rejection of the trademark by the Inpi before the Federal Court. In the process, which Sheet had access, argue that there is no chance of the consumer making an undue association between the still and the winery because, among other points, packaging and logos are different. They also state that wines and brandies are “absolutely distinct and unmistakable products”.

In time. The sale of Quinta Maria Izabel wines is now free in the country by virtue of an injunction granted by the 2nd Corporate Court of the Judicial District of Rio de Janeiro. In a note, the JCPM Group, from Quinta Maria Izabel, confirmed to Sheet that “a dialogue was initiated in an attempt to reach a coexistence agreement, something common among companies that are not operating or intend to operate with the same products and, above all, located in different markets”.

Lawyer Rodrigo Moraes, who represents the brand of cachaça, sees inconsistency in these arguments. Professor of copyright and industrial property at the Federal University of Bahia, he mentions another dispute in the beverage sector.

In 2021, cachaça from Minas Gerais João Andante lost the right to use the brand in a lawsuit filed by Diageo, maker of Johnnie Walker whiskey. The process, which reached the Superior Court of Justice, took seven years and ended when the rapporteur decided that “the packaging was not sufficient to distinguish the products sold by the parties (cachaça and whiskey)”.

In the action, Diageo was represented by the Dannemann, Siemsen, Bigler & Ipanema Moreira office —which now defends Quinta Maria Izabel and argues the opposite.

“The same law firm […] alleged that the brand of cachaça João Andante violated the brand of whiskey Johnnie Walker, considering that cachaça and whiskey belong to the ‘very same class’, being in the same market segment”, says Moraes, defender of the still.

For now, the lawyer is trying to overturn the injunction, which would force the farm to suspend wine sales in Brazil until there is a final decision in the process.

If the appeals reach the STJ, the dispute could take years. If the action wins, Maria Izabel, from Paraty, has the right to claim compensation. If you lose, you will have to live with the Maria Izabel de Portugal brand and pay procedural costs. The Dannemann, Siemsen, Bigler & Ipanema Moreira office was contacted twice by email, but did not respond to requests for the report.

In a note, the JCPM group says that “it respects all existing businesses and, at this moment, it is only seeking its right to market in Brazil the wine produced and already registered in Europe, a region that has already recognized, through some awards, the quality and dedication of the QMI team [Quinta Maria Izabel] in wine production”.