Bacardi edges closer to trademark victory

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Bacardi, the Bermuda-based maker of the famous white rum, has won the latest round in a long-running legal battle with Pernod-Ricard over the rights to a Cuban rum trademark.

A World Trade Organisation appeal panel yesterday overturned a ruling against a US law that grants companies which fled Cuba after the revolution the rights to any trademarks confiscated by the Castro government.

Bacardi and Pernod both claim the rights to the trademark "Havana Club". An earlier ruling had said the US law denied Pernod access to the US courts to pursue its claim against Bacardi. But yesterday the appeals panel said the law did meet an "internationally agreed minimum standard" on procedures for enforcing trademark rights.

However, it added that the law was still illegal because it makes it more difficult for a Cuban national to claim the rights to a trademark in the US than it would be for an American national.

The Havana Club trademark was confiscated by the Cuban government in 1960 from its original owners, Jose Arechabala. In 1993 Pernod formed a joint venture with a Cuban state enterprise to market Cuban rum under that name worldwide. But in 1997 Bacardi signed a deal to buy the rights from the Arechabala family and successfully argued that the US trademark registered by Pernod should be cancelled.