There's no accounting for taste, says EU court

There is no accounting for taste, says the Court of Justice of the European Union: tastes are too subjective to be protected by law and therefore do not fall under intellectual property law.

No copyright on taste

You can not patent taste and therefore taste can not be protected by copyrights, the CJEU ruled following a lawsuit between the Dutch cheese brands Smilde and Levola. The latter said Smilde’s “Witte Wievenkaas” (White women’s cheese) was remarkably similar to their own “Heks’nkaas” (“Witches’ cheese”): both are cheese spreads with garlic and herbs.

The Dutch Court of Appeal of Arnhem-Leeuwarden could not reach a decision, and therefore asked the European Court of Justice for advice. This court now says that the taste of food cannot be determined precisely and objectively enough. To protect something legally, however, the uniqueness must be objectively determinable, the European verdict sounds: taste cannot enjoy legal protection because it depends too much on various factors, such as the age, food preferences and consumption habits of the person who tastes the product, but also on the context and environment in which someone tastes something. Therefore, this claim does not apply.