Bacardi Is to Bring
Havana Club Rum
Back to the U.S.
By VANESSA O'CONNELL
August 8, 2006; Page A8
Bacardi Ltd., in a move aimed at blocking Cuba from eventually bringing its rum brand to the U.S. market, is expected to announce today that it is relaunching Havana Club brand rum in the U.S.

Bacardi's action comes just days after the U.S. Patent and Trademark office on Aug. 3 notified Cuba, which has controlled the brand since 1959, that its Havana Club trademark "registration will be cancelled/expired." A few days earlier, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control had denied a Cuban government agency the license needed for U.S. trademark renewal.

These decisions made it difficult for the Cuban government to claim any rights to the trademark in the U.S., giving Bacardi the chance to act.

The battle between Bacardi and Cuba over Havana Club has its roots in Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba in 1959. The newly installed Castro regime seized control of Cuba's rum industry, including both the Havana Club and Bacardi businesses. Bacardi's owners left Cuba and rebuilt their business using their Puerto Rico plant, but Havana Club's original owners didn't have any alternative factory to continue making the rum -- allowing the Castro regime to retain control.

Until 1993, Cuba made Havana Club rum primarily for domestic consumption and the Soviet bloc, but that year Cuba struck a deal with French liquor concern Pernod-Ricard SA to sell the rum in 80 countries. Since then the rum has become popular around the world -- except in the U.S. where the trade embargo blocked sale of Cuban-owned products.

While Cuba hasn't been able to sell Havana Club in the U.S., it obtained the U.S. trademark in 1974 when the brand's original owners inadvertently let the U.S. trademark lapse. With the help of the powerful anti-Castro lobby, however, Bacardi in 1999 persuaded lawmakers to change trademark law to prevent the U.S. from renewing trademarks for brands whose ownership was confiscated by the Castro regime.

For its part, Bacardi says it owns the rights to the Havana Club brand based on its attempt to launch Havana Club on a very small scale in the U.S. years ago, as well as a deal it says it made with descendants of the brand's original owners. It also has a pending application to register the Havana Club mark in its own name, according to Bacardi USA spokeswoman Pat Neal. She said the closely held company has been planning to relaunch Havana Club for at least three years.

More reasons to stay away from Bacardi!!

gross. Real havana club isnt even that great, I can only imagine what Bacardi is going to do to it

There is and will only ever be one Havana Club and Bacardi doesn't make it.

Oh well -- one more massive lawsuit to sort out when the embargo ends.

didn't cuba steal havana club label from bacardi?

Nope, it's a bit more complex : The original makers of Havana Club, the Arechabala family, had fled the country after the Revolution, leaving the distillery and the brand behind. The family did not renew its trademark, which lapsed in 1973, and in 1976, the Cuban state export company registered the century-old brand with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Twenty years later, Bacardi sought out the Arechabala family members and bought out whatever suing rights they may have had. Reportedly, Bacardi paid them $1.25 million after the family had spurned offers from Pernod Ricard (who owns european distribution rights), which was attempting to cover its back. Bacardi, happy to tweak Fidel's beard, began selling a rum with the Havana Club label (made in the Bahamas) in the United States in 1995, and Pernod sued. The case was going in Pernod's favor, as the Manhattan judge initially made her rulings based on existing law.

Then the Bacardi family cut the Gordian knot. Using political clout in Florida, it got the law changed by persuading lawmakers to smuggle a clause into a large spending bill specifically to exempt trademarks nationalized by the Cubans from the usual international protections unless the original owner had agreed to hand them over. And of course, the Arechabalas had not.

In the end, the judge broke new legal ground by accepting this retrospective and clearly privileged legislation as binding, since Pernod wanted an injunction against future use of its trademark. Judge Shira Scheindlin decided: "At this point, because plaintiffs can sell no product in this country and may not be so able for a significant length of time, they suffer no impairment of their ability to compete as a result of defendants' actions. Any competitive injury plaintiffs will suffer based upon their intent to enter the U.S. market once the embargo is lifted is simply too remote and uncertain to provide them with standing."

Also, it is to be noted that Bacardi had already left Cuba BEFORE the revolution. In 1955 Bacardi moved its trademark to the Bahamas, perhaps in gratitude for the islands' help in keeping the product moving during Prohibition, and also because that made it eligible for British Commonwealth preferences. Its offshoring from Cuba proved very prescient when Castro nationalized the Cuban operations in 1960.
Now its management is mostly living in exile in Florida, monopolizing the local markets across the Caribbean and the world with its bland, branded spirit.

quote:

While Cuba hasn't been able to sell Havana Club in the U.S., it obtained the U.S. trademark in 1974 when the brand's original owners inadvertently let the U.S. trademark lapse. With the help of the powerful anti-Castro lobby, however, Bacardi in 1999 persuaded lawmakers to change trademark law to prevent the U.S. from renewing trademarks for brands whose ownership was confiscated by the Castro regime.

It should be interesting. I (among others) have always thought Barcardi Select tastes remarkably similar to HC7yr.

Coincidence? You decide.

Question: Which would you rather buy? Rum made with Cuban sugar cane, or the "original recipe" for which, the State will realize no sales.

Is not this going to also occur when the embargoi ends with cigar brands? ie cohiba? There must be a lot of pending lawsuits over cuban trademarks and infringments real and imagined.

quote:

Originally posted by dre:
gross. Real havana club isnt even that great, I can only imagine what Bacardi is going to do to it

"Great"?

As with all booze and cigars, taste is strictly subjective, but you have to admit that HC-7 is unique.

It's almose like Porsche losing it's patent in the US only to be replaced by renamed Mercury's...lol.

Tab

I hear its going to be the perfect accompaniment to red dot cohibas.