In General Cigar Co. v. Empresa Cubana del Tabaco (Cubatabaco), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia upheld the TTAB’s cancellation of two U.S. trademark registrations for the mark “COHIBA” owned by U.S. company General Cigar. Cuban state-owned cigar company Cubatabaco, the original producer of “COHIBA” cigars in Cuba, petitioned to cancel the registrations under the 1929 General Inter-American Convention for Trade Mark and Commercial Protection (“IAC”). This treaty governs the protection of trademarks and trade names, and provides remedies for unfair competition, among parties in the member states. The Convention was signed in Washington, D.C., on February 20, 1929, by the United States and most Latin American countries, and was ultimately ratified by Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States. Although still in force, the IAC is seldom invoked in U.S. trademark litigation, making this case a rare modern example of its application.
