Even if the city is called Budejovice the name Budweiser is always to be considered a word that indicates a geographical origin and as such is relevant in the trademarks discipline.
The Industrial Property Code limits the registrability of geographical names as trademarks, and in the law suit existing between two beer producers, a Czech one and an American one, the matter of the dispute has precisely been whether the term Budweiser is to be considered a geographical name or not.
The Supreme Court (judgment 21023/2013) has affirmed that «no norm foresees that geographical denominations, i.e. geographical names, are only those currently foreseen pursuant to the law and the administrative regulations in force.»
Therefore, a geographical denomination continues to assume full validity and efficiency, for the purposes of the Industrial Property Code, when its notoriety lasts despite it is not officially used.
«The case is frequent in which in a past, sometimes very remote, localities or entire regions had a name different from the current one, in some cases expressed in a different language not in use anymore but that have remained of common use in the language and continue to be known to the people. In that case, it is certain that said names shall be, for the purposes that concern here, considered as geographical denominations suitable, as a consequence, to indicate to the consumers the origin of a given product.»
After this assertion of principle the decision is now in the hands of the Court of Appeal of Rome that will have to establish if the American producer can use the term Budweiser or if such a use is forbidden to it since the beer does not come from the area of the Czech Republic to which this name refers.