Bacardi this week lost a US appeal in its long-running dispute with the Cuban government over the rights to the Havana Club rum trademark.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bacardi’s challenge to a US Patent and Trademark Office decision to renew Cuba-owned Cubaexport’s federal Havana Club trademark in 2016.

Bacardi said it was “disappointed that the court granted the Cuban government a 10-year grace period for renewing a trademark that was stolen in the first place”.

The spirits giant added that Cubaexport’s trademark would expire later this month and could not be renewed under a 2024 law that bars US courts and agencies from recognising trademarks confiscated by the Cuban government.

A Cubaexport attorney and a USPTO spokesperson declined to comment, according to Reuters.

Bacardi left Cuba after the Cuban Revolution and said the Cuban government unlawfully seized the Havana Club name and assets from Jose Arechabala S.A. in 1960.

The company later bought Jose Arechabala’s brand and began selling Havana Club rum in the US in 1995.

Cubaexport, a Cuban state-owned business, first registered the Havana Club trademark in the US in 1976.

Cubaexport and French spirits company Pernod Ricard sell Havana Club rum outside the US. Pernod Ricard was not involved in the case.

Cubaexport tried to renew its US trademark in 2005 but was initially blocked after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control refused to issue it a licence.

OFAC later changed course and issued the licence near the end of the Obama administration, with the USPTO renewing Cubaexport’s trademark in 2016.

Bacardi sued the USPTO in a Virginia federal court in 2021, arguing that Cubaexport’s trademark should have expired in 2006.

US District Judge Liam O’Grady dismissed the case in 2022, finding that Bacardi could only challenge the mark through trademark office procedures. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case in 2024.

US District Judge Leonie Brinkema dismissed the lawsuit again last year, and a three-judge 4th Circuit panel upheld that ruling on Tuesday.

“The OFAC license cleared the fog, removing the legal obstacle that had prevented the 2005 transfer from counting as payment,” the appeals court said.

“What looked incomplete in 2006 was, by 2016, timely and effective.”

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