President Joe Biden signed the “Stolen Trademark Act”, previously approved by the U.S. Congress, whose purpose is, as its name suggests, to steal a trademark to favor the Bacardi company and deprive Americans of their rights as consumers.
“The real intention of this maneuver is to prevent the renewal of the Havana Club trademark in the United States, which should occur in 2026, and strip the Cubaexport company of its rights as a holder of the registration before the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office,” denounced on her Facebook page Johana Tablada de la Torre, deputy director general of the U.S. Directorate of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, pointed out in his X account that this regulation modifies the law as an aggressive measure against Cuba, to open the door to the theft of Cuban trademarks legitimately registered in that country.
There are 6,448 U.S. trademarks registered in Cuba and 1,177 are in the process of registration. All of them are protected by the Cuban Industrial Property authorities, a very different attitude from the one adopted by the U.S. government.
Tablada commented that by signing the “Stolen Trademarks Act”, which should be called the Bacardi Act, the law is modified to benefit a company, with no other right than the generous contributions to Cuban-born politicians who profit from the policy of strangling the Cuban people.
“With this deceitful maneuver, Bacardi's benefited senators in Congress and the outgoing and incoming U.S. government are acting in violation of the international system of industrial property protection,” he said.
With his signature, President Biden clears the way for stripping of the use of the Havana Club brand in the United States.
As occurred with the fraudulent section 211, this maneuver resulted from the agreement and corruption of anti-Cuban politicians, congressmen, senators, and the Bacardi company, co-author of the Helms-Burton Act.