BC Whisky Maker Sued by Scotch Whisky Association for Using Scottish Words in Their Branding

Hi Everyone,

I was recently reviewing the passing off cases and came across this article about how a BC whisky maker is being sued by the Scotch Whisky Association for using Scottish words to describe their whisky. This is reminiscent of the Institut National Champagne case, and seems to me like a really interesting extension of the principles in that case. In this case the BC distiller is making what it calls “Caledonian Whisky” and the Scotch Whisky Association contends that “Caledonian” is a regional designation for Scotch that can only be used on whisky from the region. I find it interesting that in this case they are asking the BC Supreme Court to protect a sub-class of Scotch (already a protected regional designation), which seems like a logical extension of Institut National, but also makes me wonder how far you can go in protecting regional names for products (since in this case the BC distiller isn’t even calling its product “Scotch”).