[Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: NY Transfer News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 3:30 AM Subject: [CubaNews] Complex WTO Ruling in Barcardi Case Due Aug 6 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Friday July 6, 12:45 pm Eastern Time (via Yahoo) EU says won a key point in WTO Cuban rum dispute BRUSSELS, July 6 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Friday that a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel had ruled in its favour on a key legal point in a dispute with the United States over trademark rights to a brand of Cuban rum. While disputing reports that the European Union had lost the high-profile WTO case, a Commission official indicated that other legal arguments in the case may have gone against the EU in the WTO dispute panel's ruling. The panel's confidential final ruling, sent to Brussels and Washington this week, is due to be published on August 6. The EU's complaint against the United States at the WTO stems from a legal tussle between two world famous drinks makers, Bacardi and France's Pernod Ricard SA , over which has the rights to the "Havana Club" trade mark in the United States. "The WTO found in favour of the EU's complaint on one of the principal points," European Commission trade spokesman Anthony Gooch told reporters. He said the panel had ruled that Section 211, a U.S. law barring registration of confiscated Cuban trade marks, violated a WTO agreement on intellectual property rights by denying effective access to U.S. courts for Pernod Ricard to pursue its claim against Bacardi. "For us obviously this is a key point. You could argue that there are certain other elements in the report that do not go in our favour, but that is an extremely important point in the whole case," he said. "I don't think it is quite correct to say one side has won and one side has lost," he said, reacting to a Financial Times report that the WTO panel had found against the EU on all but one of the 12 legal arguments it had used. Gooch said the EU would have to "weigh the merits" of an appeal. Once the WTO panel's report is made public on August 6, "we'll have a couple of months to decide (whether to appeal) as will the U.S.," he said. Pernod Ricard, which helps manufacture Havana Club rum in Cuba under a joint venture agreement with the Cuban government, has been seeking to register the trademark in the United States without success. RUM AND REVOLUTION In 1999, a U.S. court ruled that the Bermuda-based Bacardi company could distribute its own rum under the Havana Club label because the original distilleries that produced it were nationalised after the 1959 revolution on the island. Bacardi is owned by a Cuban exile family, and the U.S. court found that it could benefit under a section of a 1998 act extending the 40-year U.S. trade embargo against the communist-ruled island to the area of intellectual property. The law was aimed at protecting trademarks owned before 1959 by companies that were taken over by the state when revolutionary leader Fidel Castro came to power. Pernod-Ricard, which markets Havana Club around the world including in Canada and Mexico, had hoped to register the name ready for launch on the huge U.S. market if and when the embargo was lifted. The European Union, which acts in the WTO for all 15 member countries, took the case to the organisation's dispute settlement body at the request of the French government, arguing that the law was a violation of the WTO's accord on trade-related intellectual property (TRIPS). Sources told Reuters in Geneva last month that an earlier preliminary ruling found that part of Section 211 of the 1998 U.S. law -- used to justify refusal to grant Pernod Ricard a trademark licence for Havana Club -- did violate TRIPS, and should be revised. But it rejected EU arguments that all of Section 211 was in violation of the accord and should be rescinded, the sources said. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================= ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> The Nissan Sentra Everything but compact http://NissanDriven.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/3vsIKC/txlCAA/ySSFAA/xYTolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post comments to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send an email to subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this CubaNews group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
