Request for a preliminary ruling about the use of figurative signs to illustrate protected designations of origin

Case C-614/17. Fundación Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen Protegida Queso Manchego. Tribunal Supremo (Spain).

Geographical indications. Taken from the summary at minbuza.nl: "The applicant (Fundación Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen Protegida Queso Manchego) has started proceedings against defendants (Industrial Quesera Cuquerella and Cuquerella Montagud), in which it has put forward several claims. The applicant asks that it shall be declared that the use of defendants labels with the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) 'queso manchego' and using the PDO to refer to both cheeses covered by the 'queso manchego' PDO and to other cheeses not covered by the PDO infringe the 'queso manchego'  PDO under Article 13 Regulation 510/2006.

The applicant argues that the 'presentation' of the PDO can arise through the use of figurative signs evoking a representation of the PDO that is fundamentally conceptual in nature. This statement could be supported by a number of statements made by the Court from which it follows that there can also be a presentation when there is no risk of confusion, since it primarily concerns not evoking the association about the origin of the product in the public mind, and an economic operator should not be allowed to wrongly benefit from the reputation of an protected geographical indication. [...]

Preliminary questions (unofficial translation from Dutch):

1. In order to be able to speak of the evocation of a protected designation of origin protected under Article 13 (1)(b) of Regulation No 510/2006, does there need to be a use of names which are graphicly or phonetically similar to that protected designation of origin, or can this representation also be evoked by the use of a figurative sign evoking a representation of the designation of origin. 

2. In the case of a protected designation of origin with a geographical character [Article 2 (1)(a) of Regulation 510/2006], where identical or similar products are concerned, can the use of signs which evoke a representation to which the protected designation of origin is related, be regarded as the evocation of a representation - as referred to in Article 13 (1)(b) of Regulation 510/2006 - of the protected designation of origin itself which is also prohibited in the case where the person using those signs is a producer established in the region to which that protected designation of origin is related, but whose products are not covered by that protected designation of origin because, apart from the requirement of geographical origin, they do not meet any other requirements?

3. Does the notion of the average consumer, who is reasonably well informed, reasonably observant and attentive, whose perception the national court should just by in order to determine whether there is an evocation as referred to in Article 13 (1)(b) of Regulation No 510/2006 refer to the European consumer or only to the consumer in the Member State in which the product which calls for the protected geograhical designation, is manufactured or with which the protected geographical designation is connected and where the product is mainly consumed."