St. Helena, Calif.—The Napa Valley Vintners obtained a certification mark from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the name “Napa Valley.” According to the vintners’ group, securing the mark required five years of work in Washington D.C. and dozens of agreements with the owners of businesses with the word “Napa” in their own trademarks.

In order to register the Certification Mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, NVV needed to obtain more than 50 written agreements from wineries and wine-related businesses that use the word "Napa" in their own trademarks, proving that those trademarks were compliant with the standards for the Napa Valley AVA. After applying for the mark, an additional 50 individual agreements were negotiated with owners of new "Napa" trademarks to demonstrate enforcement of the Certification Mark.

In addition to obtaining this Certification Mark, the NVV has gained name protection status for the Napa Valley in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey.

"Working with other countries to obtain protection for the Napa Valley name, it became clear we needed similar status here at home to be taken seriously when requesting support outside the U.S,” said J. Scott Gerien, trademark attorney for Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty in Napa Valley and the vintners’ group’s counsel in the process. “It's taken us a long time to register this mark and we're grateful to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for their assistance."