Taste of Cheese Can’t Get Copyright Protection, EU Court Says (1)

Copyright law can’t be stretched to protect the taste of food, according to judges at the European Union’s top court.

The EU’s Court of Justice, known as the CJEU, helped fill a gap in the bloc’s law in a dispute referred from a Dutch tribunal about spreadable cheese.

The case was triggered by a dispute in the Netherlands between a company claiming copyright protection for the taste of a spreadable cheese with herbs, and a company producing a similar cheese for supermarket chain Aldi.

The fact that the case got as far as the CJEU is part of a growing ...