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The Relationship between Public Health and IP Rights: Chile Prosecutes Kellogg’s, Nestlé and Masterfoods for Using Cartoons Aimed at Attracting Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2017

Abstract

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Footnotes

*

Ignacio Carreño is a Senior Associate and Tobias Dolle is an Associate at FratiniVergano – European Lawyers, a law firm with offices in Brussels and Singapore that specialises in international trade and food law. An earlier version of this report appeared in Trade Perspectives©, Issue No. 22 of 2 December 2016, available at: <http://www.fratinivergano.eu/en/trade-perspectives/>. Corresponding author: [email protected].

References

1 SERNAC is a government agency established under the Ministry of Economics, Business Development and Tourism. SERNAC’s mission is to educate, inform and protect consumers in Chile and to mediate in consumer conflicts between suppliers and consumers. SERNAC was established through Chile’s Consumer Protection Law (Ley 19.496).

2 “SERNAC denuncia a Nestlé, Kelloggs y Masterfoods por incumplir normativa publicitaria para menores de 14 años - Ley de Etiquetado de Alimentos”, 22 November 2016, available at: <http://www.sernac.cl/ley-de-etiquetado-de-alimentos-sernac-denuncia-a-nestle-kelloggs-y-masterfoods-por-incumplir-normati/> (last accessed on 10 December 2016).

3 Ley No. 19.496 Sobre Protección de los Derechos de los Consumidores of 7 February 1997, published on 7 March 1997, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, Legislación Chilena, last amended on 30 August 2016, available at: <https://www.leychile.cl/N?i=61438&f=2016-08-30&p> (last accessed on 10 December 2016).

4 Ley No. 20.606 Sobre Composición Nutricional de los Alimentos y su Publicidad (i.e. Law on the Nutritional Composition of Food and its Advertising) of 6 June 2012, published on 6 July 2012, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, Legislación Chilena, available at: <http://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=1041570&idVersion=2012-07-06> (last accessed on 10 December 2016), as modified by Ley No. 20.869 Sobre Publicidad de Alimentos of 6 November 2015, published on 13 November 2015, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, Legislación Chilena, available at: <https://www.leychile.cl/N?i=1083792&f=2015-11-13&p> (last accessed on 10 December 2016).

5 For more background, see Pilar Rodríguez, “La guerra entre Salud y el área económica del gabinete por el etiquetado de los alimentos”, 20 November 2014, available at: <http://ciperchile.cl/2014/11/20/la-guerra-entre-salud-y-el-area-economica-del-gabinete-por-el-etiquetado-de-los-alimentos/> (last accessed on 10 December 2016).

6 Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, “Historia de la Ley No. 20.606 Sobre Composición Nutricional de los Alimentos y su Publicidad”, 12 October 2011, p. 233, 281.

7 Art. 6 of Law No. 20.606.

8 Art. 5 of Law No. 20.606.

9 Decreto No. 13 de 16 Abril 2015 que modifica Decreto Supremo No. 977 de 1966, Reglamento Sanitario de los Alimentos, Diario Oficial de la República de Chile, 26 June 2015, I No 41.193.

10 See for more details: Ignacio Carreño, “Chile adopts warning statements in the form of a black STOP sign for ‘HFSS foods’ (i.e. foods high in fat, salt or sugar)” (2015) 4 EJRR 622.

11 Ricardo Pérez V, “La ‘Cajita feliz’ de McDonald’s saldría definitivamente del mercado”, La Nación, 12 July 2016, available at: <http://www.lanacion.cl/noticias/pais/salud/la-cajita-feliz-de-mcdonalds-saldria-definitivamente-del-mercado/2016-07-12/072608.html> (last accessed 15 December 2016); “Zu viele dicke Kinder: Chile verbietet Ferrero-Überraschungsei und ‘Happy Meal’ von McDonald’s”, Berliner Kurier, 30 June 2016, available at: <http://www.berliner-kurier.de/24319072> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

12 Pablo Petovel, “Kinder Sorpresa le responde a quienes prohibieron sus huevos en Chile”, 13 June 2016, available at: <http://www.merca20.com/kinder-sorpresa-le-responde-a-quienes-prohibieron-sus-huevos-en-chile/> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

13 “A un poco más de un mes de haber entrado en vigencia: Subsecretaría de Salud y SERNAC explican cómo ejercer los derechos establecidos en la Ley de Etiquetado y Publicidad de Alimentos”, 11 August 2016, available at: <http://www.sernac.cl/a-un-poco-mas-de-un-mes-de-haber-entrado-en-vigencia-subsecretaria-de-salud-y-sernac-explican-como-e/> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

14 Ibid.

15 “Sumario a local de McDonald’s podría incluir a proveedores”, El Mercurio, 13 July 2016, p. 16.

16 Fernando Vega, “Coca Cola cambió 59 fórmulas por nueva ley de etiquetado”, 4 September 2016, available at: <http://www.latercera.com/noticia/coca-cola-cambio-59-formulas-por-nueva-ley-de-etiquetado/> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

17 SOFOFA (Federation of Chilean Industry), “Autoridad de Salud abre los primeros procesos sancionatorios por faltas a la Ley de Etiquetado, Seremi de Salud acogió una denuncia del senador (PPD) Guido Girardi, uno de los creadores de la norma. Sernac también está analizando los casos y envió oficios a trece empresas. Desde la industria rechazan categóricamente las acusaciones”, 22 August 2016, available at: <http://web.sofofa.cl/noticia/autoridad-de-salud-abre-los-primeros-procesos-sancionatorios-por-faltas-a-la-ley-de-etiquetado/> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

18 Alberto Alemanno, “Health warnings on junk food”, 25 March 2013, available at <http://albertoalemanno.eu/articles/health-warnings-on-junk-food> (last accessed on 23 October 2015).

19 Idem.

20 Gill Hyslop, “Chilean watchdog sues Nestlé, Kellogg’s and Masterfoods for violating advertising regulations”, 23 November 2016, available at <http://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Regulation-Safety/SERNAC-sues-Nestle-Kellogg-s-and-Masterfoods> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

21 Specifically, the director of SERNAC indicated fines of 1.650 UTM (i.e. the Unidad Tributaria Mensual, a unit used for tax purposes and fines) for each of the operators.

22 See for the legislative procedure, Carreño, supra note 10.

23 Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade - Minutes of the meeting of 5–6 November 2014, WTO Doc. G/TBT/M/64. WTO members use meetings of the TBT Committee to flag and discuss concerns about technical regulations affecting products and services that they believe hinder international trade and adversely impact competitive opportunities. Regulations concerning food and beverages (in particular, restrictive labelling and packaging measures, product standards, and marketing and sales restrictions) are often the subject of specific trade concerns at these meetings. WTO members frequently question the evidence supporting the specific measures and inquire about the possibility of adopting less restrictive alternative measures to ensure, as required by the relevant WTO agreements, that technical regulations not be more trade restrictive than necessary. Only representatives of WTO members attend TBT Committee meetings, which are, however, opportunities for the relevant industries (e.g. the food industry) to engage with their respective governments and provide supporting technical and factual information.

24 David Byrne, “Foreword” in Alberto Alemanno and Enrico Bonadio (eds), The New Intellectual Property of Health – Beyond Plain Packaging (Elgar 2016) xi.

25 Alberto Alemanno and Enrico Bonadio, “Introduction: Setting the scene” in Alemanno and Bonadio, supra note 24, 4.

26 Enrico Bonadio, “On the nature of trademark rights: does trademark registration confer positive or negative rights?” in Alemanno and Bonadio, supra note 24, 43 et sqq.

27 Idem. and Mark Davison, “Plain packaging of tobacco products and the WTO challenge” in Alemanno and Bonadio, supra note 24, 163 et sqq.

28 Robert Hudec, Developing Countries in the GATT/WTO Legal System (London: Rowman & Littlefield 1987) 112.

29 Ignacio Carreño and Eugenia Laurenza, “The interface between nutrition and health claims and EU law” in Alemanno and Bonadio, supra note 24, 138 et sqq.

30 “Forrest E Mars, Sr”, available at: <http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/forrest-e-mars-sr> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

31 Rachel Quinn, April Brophy and Julieanne O’Connor, “Integrated Marketing Communication Campaign for Frosties Reduced Sugar Cereal”, 12 April 2013, Institute of Technology Carlow, available at: <http://studylib.net/doc/9273536/frosties-imc-campaign-2013> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

32 Rodrigo Ramirez, Nicole Sternsdorf and Carolina Pastor, “Ley de Etiquetado y Publicidad de Alimentos en Chile: ¿Un modelo replicable para Latinoamérica?”, May 2016, available at: <http://www.desarrollando-ideas.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/05/160504_DI_informe_alimentacion_chile_ESP.pdf> (last accessed 15 December 2016).

33 Carreño and Laurenza, supra note 29, 138 et sqq.

34 Paulina Maturana, “Chile: Novedades en el etiquetado de alimentos”, 9 June 2016, available at: <http://www.clarkemodet.com/es/actualidad/blog/2016/06/novedades-etiquetado-alimentos-chile.html#.WEk9-LIrLTA> (last accessed 16 December 2016).

35 Ley No. 19.039 Sobre Normas Aplicables a los Privilegios Industriales y Protección de los Derechos de Propiedad Industrial of 24 January 1991, published on 25 January 1991, most recently amended on 11 March 2005 by Ley 19.996, available at: <https://www.leychile.cl/N?i=30406&f=2005-03-11&p> (last accessed 15 December 2016).