A Trademark Ruling that Cites Cigar Aficionado

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” Sigmund Freud is thought to have said. But when is a cigar a prized Cohiba cigar? That is still an open question in a bitter 11-year legal battle between the Cuban government-owned maker of the famed Cohibaa brand smoked by none other than Fidel Castroand a U.S. company, General Cigar Co., that has used the name “Cohiba” for cigars it has sold nationwide in the United States since 1997.

The latest interesting twist in the case took place in November, when Robert Sweet, the U.S. district court judge in Manhattan who is handling the case, applied a recent ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals on the question of unfair trade by misappropriation. That state ruling stems from the landmark 2007 federal case ITC Inc. v. Punchini Corp., in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided that there is no federal “famous marks” exception to the rule that the U.S. does not enforce trademark rights that exist only under foreign law.