By Neil Buckley in Brussels. Financial Times. Published: July 3 2000 20:25GMT
The European Union has called for a World Trade Organisation disputes panel to rule on a US trademark law in a new transatlantic dispute over Cuban rum.
The EU Commission said it had requested a panel over Section 211 of the 1998 US Omnibus Appropriations Act, which says trademarks used in connection with assets confiscated by the Cuban government in the 1960s cannot be registered without permission from the original owner.
The new WTO case comes at a time of already strained relations between Brussels and Washington over WTO rulings on the EU's banana import regime and ban on hormone-treated beef.
The origin of the case is a battle between Bacardi, maker of the white rum that is the biggest international spirits brand, and the French spirits group Pernod Ricard over which has the rights to the famous Havana Club trademark in the US.
The US Appeal Court in February upheld a ruling against a joint venture between Pernod Ricard and a Cuban distiller, which tried to defend its right to use the Havana Club name against Bacardi, which is using the same brand in the US.
Bacardi, the world's biggest family-owned spirits maker, has bought the Havana Club brand from the Arechabala family, which owned it until its seizure in 1960 by Fidel Castro's government.
It says its aim is to help the family regain control of the brand, and the US court's verdict restored the disputed name to the Arechabalas.
But Pernod's joint venture has been enjoying growth of 25 per cent a year since it began selling its Cuban-produced Havana Club brand around the world in 1994. It says the Arechabalas had done nothing to maintain ownership of the trademarks or names. And they had failed to re-register the
trademark when it lapsed in the US in the 1970s.
The EU says the US Section 211 legislation obliges Cuban companies wishing to register a trademark in the US previously owned by an entity expropriated by the Castro government to get the original owner's agreement - even when the owner abandoned the trademark and it became available to
everybody.
That obligation is discriminatory and violates several US obligations under the WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPs, the EU says. Registration of a trade mark "cannot be made conditional on the consent of a trade mark owner who has abandoned his
rights". |