[Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Walter Lippmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CubaNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 1:57 AM Subject: [CubaNews] No resolution of rum dispute at WTO meeting There's some useful tracing of the history of this trademark fight, but it's evident that the WTO decided not to decide about this. _____________________ Monday August 6 12:38 PM ET WTO Sides With EU in Rum Dispute By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) - U.S. officials said Monday that a World Trade Organization ruling in a trademark law dispute affecting alcoholic beverage giants Bacardi and Pernod Ricard was a defeat for the European Union. A trade official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a WTO panel had found that ``U.S. law is not inconsistent with WTO agreements.'' The 142-nation WTO, which oversees global trade rules, sided with one EU objection to a U.S. law, known as Section 211, which denies protection for trademarks linked to businesses confiscated by the Cuban government since the 1959 communist takeover. But it turned down 13 other EU objections. Bermuda-based Bacardi has used the 1998 Section 211 law in its strategy to wrestle and keep control of U.S. rights to the ``Havana Club'' rum trademark away from Havana Club Holding, a joint venture between French firm Pernod Ricard and the Cuban government. The panel said Section 211 prevents parties from accessing U.S. courts to settle a trademark dispute, thereby stripping WTO members of rights set out under the WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as TRIPS. ``The WTO panel only found fault with the procedural issue,'' said the U.S. official. ``They said the U.S. needs to allow an opportunity to go to court - but not that the law itself is wrong.'' The European Commission, which represents the 15-member EU in trade matters, welcomed the ruling and said it paves the way for Pernod Ricard to take up the case in the U.S. courts. But it said it will appeal part of decision because the WTO panel concluded that ``trade names are not covered by the TRIPS discipline and that TRIPS doesn't regulate the question of the determination of the ownership of intellectual property rights.'' ``This very narrow interpretation of TRIPS could significantly reduce the level of trademark protection around the world by leaving each WTO member complete freedom on determining who is the owner of trademark as long as it respects the procedural requirements of TRIPS,'' the Commission said. Section 211 bars U.S. courts from recognizing or enforcing trademarks or trade names substantially similar to those used in connection with Cuban businesses or assets confiscated by Castro, unless the original owner has given consent. The law was attached as an appropriations rider to a 1999 omnibus spending bill in late 1998, after intense lobbying by Bacardi. The Havana Club trademark was confiscated by the Cuban revolutionary government in 1960 from its original owners, Jose Arechabala S.A. The Arechabala family continued to own the U.S. registration of the Havana Club trade name through 1973, when they allowed ownership to expire. The Cuban-owned company that took over the Arechabala family's property in 1960 applied for the rights to the name in the United States and took possession in 1976. In 1993, Pernod Ricard and the Cuban-owned company formed a joint-venture, Havana Club Holding, to combine Pernod's distribution network with the Cuban company's rights to the Havana Club name and sell this brand of rum in all parts of the world except the U.S. - where sales are prohibited by the U.S. embargo against all Cuban imports. Still, Pernod Ricard wanted to hold onto U.S. registration of the Havana Club name in case the embargo is ever lifted. While adversaries in almost every realm, the United States and Cuba have agreed to recognize each other's intellectual property rights under the Inter-American Trademark Convention. In 1994, Bacardi tried to register the Havana Club mark in the United States, but failed because of Havana Club Holding owned it. In 1996, Bacardi began anyway to sell Havana Club rum, distilled outside of Cuba, prompting Havana Club Holding to file a lawsuit. In 1997, Bacardi reached an agreement with the Arechabala family to pay them for the rights to the name, and argued that they are the rightful owners of the name. Havana Club Holding disagreed, citing its own U.S. registration, and the dispute continued through the courts. Monday August 6, 11:37 am Eastern Time Trade panel leaves EU- U.S. Cuban rum row in limbo By Robert Evans GENEVA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) said on Monday that a disputes panel looking into an EU-U.S. row over a major Cuban rum label had found that the United States was violating one aspect of global trading rules in the case. But the finding, the contents of which had already substantially leaked over the past month, also rejected 11 out of 12 EU arguments in the dispute -- leaving its resolution ``in limbo'', according to one expert following the case. At the centre of the row are rival claims by the Bermuda-based Bacardi Ltd and France's Pernod Ricard SA -- two of the world's largest drinks makers -- to the use of the ``Havana Club'' rum trademark in the United States. The French firm in 1993 formed a joint venture with the Cuban state liquor firm, which adopted the label when it took over manufacture of the rum after the 1959 revolution, and markets ``Havana Club'' in over 70 countries. Bacardi, which insists it acquired the rights from the label's original owners who went into exile after 1959, has registered the label in the United States. The dispute is highly political because of its links to the four-decade U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and to other U.S. laws on dealings with the Communist-ruled island that affect firms based in other countries. The ruling by the three-member panel, sent to Washington and Brussels a month ago, said a U.S. law on trademarks taken over by the Cuban government since 1959 -- section 211 of a 1998 appropriations act -- was in violation of WTO rules. The law was aimed at restricting use in the United States of labels of products originally made in Cuba by firms who were nationalised after Cuban leader Fidel Castro came to power. ACCESS TO U.S. COURTS The WTO panel took issue with the law's failure to guarantee access to U.S. courts for firms that had registered Cuban trademarks in other countries. The panel said this omission should be corrected to make the law conform to WTO intellectual property rules, or TRIPS. But it rejected EU arguments that the law discriminated against firms based in other countries and favoured U.S. or U.S.-linked companies. An EU statement in Brussels hailed the report -- which it said ``contains some positive elements'' for the 15-nation bloc -- as confirming that Section 211 was in violation of TRIPS. The statement said the finding should open the way for Pernod-Ricard to take up its case on winning from Bacardi the right to use the Havana Club label in the United States through the U.S. courts. But the statement said Brussels would be appealing against some of the other panel findings, including the conclusion that the WTO TRIPS rules did not regulate how ownership of intellectual property rights was determined. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials, but trade diplomats said Washington was also likely to appeal. This would stretch the case out initially until early next year, and even if the WTO's quasi-judicial Appellate Body came down fully behind the panel on all aspects of the findings, it would be many months more before the U.S. law could be altered to give Pernod Ricard access to the U.S. court system.
