CWNews
General Cigar Wins Right to Keep Cohiba
July15, 2010
Frank Seltzer (Mowee)
There has been a long court battle between Cuba and General Cigar over the Cohiba trademark. The case dates back to 1997 when Cuba sued claiming rights to the Cohiba name under U-S law, even though the country had taken no legal action on the trademark for the previous 20 years. General won the initial case back in 2004 when the claim by Cubatabaco of trademark infringement was dismissed. Cuba appealled to the district court and lost that as well in 2005. But Cuba wasn’t about to give up. It refiled with the U-S district court and this time it won, putting the Cohiba trademark at risk for General. The appeal ended Wednesday when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s latest ruling saying it found the argmuments of Cubatabaco to be without merit.
According to Dan Carr, the COO of General, “The Second Circuit court’s ruling upholds what we have always believed since we first filed a U.S. application to register the COHIBA trademark in 1978: that General Cigar is the rightful owner of Cohiba in the U.S. We continue to remain confident that our exclusive right to the Cohiba cigar brand in the U.S. will be upheld even if Cubatabaco attempts further legal efforts to challenge these rights.”