Rum Trademark Dispute Calls for U.S. Action

The decision on Bacardi’s right to market the Havana Club rum in the U.S. [“Rum War Threatens to Put U.S. in Policy Bind,” June 20] should send a clear message to dictatorial regimes that confiscate properties without compensation: The trademarks of their stolen property should not be honored in the U.S.

Bacardi paid for the right to use the Havana Club label to the rightful owners of the trademark, who had to flee Cuba after their business was confiscated. The French firm Pernod, which established a joint venture with the Castro regime, has known for many years that Havana Club was confiscated by the Castro regime without any compensation to its owners.

Pernod has been profiting from the use of stolen property, much as the Swiss banks did from the use of Holocaust victims’ funds.

Should we hold a double standard and say that it was right for the Swiss banks to be penalized, while we look the other way on the Castro regime’s confiscations?

It is obvious that a WTO rule is needed, banning governments from using trademarks from properties they steal or confiscate and imposing penalties on those that do so. U.S. corporations that fear for the infringement of their trademarks by the Castro regime should get on the side of fairness and condemn the Castro regime’s practice of using trademarks of stolen properties.

The Clinton administration’s weak stomach on this matter is shameful, in view of all the pressures and lobbying it imposed on the Swiss banks that had used Holocaust victims’ properties.

Dr. LUIS L. SUAREZ

Irvine

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Visitors to Cuba are amazed at evidence of the billions in losses sustained by U.S. corporations in goods and services resulting from the politically inspired embargo of that neighboring country.

The staggering losses to our pharmaceutical industry alone justify serious congressional reevaluation. U.S. jobs, corporate profits and negotiating advantages are fleeing to countries not handicapped by an economic death wish.

The Helms-Burton Act and the pit bull tactics of congressional mercenaries in Florida support the hackneyed comment, “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”

WILLIAM S. PATTERSON

Palm Desert, Calif.

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The Cuban-French venture does not hold “an apparently legitimate trademark,” as the article states. Whether it’s honored or not, the fact remains that the trademark was acquired through illegitimate confiscation without just and proper compensation, as international law requires.

Then again, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since lately the lifting of the embargo and a relaxing of our long-standing policy on Cuba has become cause celebre for liberals in the media and academic circles.

ALEXIS I. TORRES

South Gate