Roquefort Logo
Trademark: Roquefort Logo
First Used: 1866
First Registered: 1953
Current Owner: CONFEDERATION GENERALE DES PRODUCTEURS DE LAIT DE BREBIS ET DES INDUSTRIELS DE ROQUEFORT [1]
Trademark Type: certification mark; design mark
Primarily Associated With: cheese [2]
Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:
The Roquefort Logo is a significant piece of trademark history – it is one of the oldest still-active certification mark registrations in the United States! The Roquefort Logo also represents one of the earliest examples of a geographic certification mark used to protect both quality and regional identity.
Roquefort cheese is often called the “King of Cheeses,” and its royal lineage goes back centuries to the limestone caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in southern France. Legend has it that a young shepherd left his meal of bread and sheep’s milk cheese in a cave while chasing after a girl. After he returned to the cave, he found his bread moldy and his cheese transformed with the marbled blue veins that would make it famous. That mold, Penicillium roqueforti, thrives naturally in the caves’ damp air and has given Roquefort its sharp, tangy character. Legends aside, the first historical evidence of its production dates back to 1411 when Roquefort cheese first gained legal protection from King Charles VI of France. Today, just as Champagne and Bordeaux wines are classified and protected based on region and product methods by France's Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (“Appellation of Controlled Origin”), so too is Roquefort cheese, the first cheese ever granted Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée status.
Remember, a certification mark is owned by the trademark owner, but used by third parties that qualify for the certification (unlike trademarks and service marks that are owned by and used by the owner). To use the Roquefort Logo certification mark, the cheese in question must be (1) made from sheep’s milk only, and (2) cured in the natural caves of the community of Roquefort, department of Aveyron, France.
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[1] Roquefort, https://www.roquefort.fr/.
[2] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 571,798, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71624872&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[3] The Legend, SOCIETE ROQUEFORT, available at https://societeroquefort.com/legend-and-cheese/; Le Roquefort, 1st PDO in history, ROQUEFORT, available at https://www.roquefort.fr/en/first-pdo-history/; Roquefort, BRITANNICA, available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roquefort; Roquefort Cheese: Its Rich History, Artisanal Craft, and Complex Flavours, ACADEMY OF CHEESE, posted December 16, 2020, and available at https://academyofcheese.org/roquefort/; The Idyllic Myth Behind Roquefort Cheese's Origin, TASTINGTABLE, posted November 8, 2022, and available at https://www.tastingtable.com/1092118/the-idyllic-myth-behind-roquefort-cheeses-origin/.