GENEVA,— Cuba has again denounced, before the World Trade Organization, repeated U.S. violations of its intellectual property rights. In a meeting held by the WTO ‘s dispute resolution panel May 24, Latin American countries voiced their dissatisfaction, a full 10 years after the body ruled against the United States in the "Havana Club case," according to EFE.

Cuba’s alternate representative to the international organization headquarters in Geneva, Nancy Madrigal, recalled that, for more than a decade, Washington has maintained Section 211 of the 1998 Congressional Omnibus Law despite many calls for its elimination, Prensa Latina reported.

The Cuban statement was supported by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, according to information released by the diplomatic mission in Geneva.

In 2002, the WTO’s dispute resolution panel ruled that the U.S. law violates sections of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

Section 211 does not allow rightful owners of Cuban trademarks or names used in commerce to be recognized or protected in the U.S.

This legislation has served as the pretext used for allowing the Bacardi Company to flagrantly appropriate the Havana Club trademark in the United States, the only place in the world where this can happen, said Madrigal.

The CUBAEXPORT company, legitimate owner of Havana Club, last January requested that the U.S. Supreme Court review the case which had been heard in lower courts. This request was denied May 14.

Thus, according to the diplomat, a Cuban entity has been definitively robbed of a trademark which was legitimately recognized for more than 30 years in the United States.