So, similarly, could any of those parties bring a similar action against Havana Club? I mean, I thought I was getting real Cuban rum there.
You can only do so much for kids these days. 
But he is the Hot Dog Nazi like on Seinfeld. You walk in, cash only, and he tells you that he has mustard, onions, and “sauce.” You can keep some off or you can add some more on. How many do you want and what do you want on them? If you fuck with him, you are gone and the next in line gets served.
He’s a mean old bastard so when he runs out of dogs the place closes. People from Fairmont when they travel home go there just to be treated poorly. Some say that they are the best dogs ever, but how good or bad can a hot dog be?
Cornish Pasties in the UK have to be from Cornwall now, but for a long time it was accepted that a Cornish Pasty was just a style. Seems a bit silly really. Yorkshire Puddings are Yorkshire Puddings wherever they’re made, as are Cumberland Sausages, Scotch Eggs, etc.
Port is a particularly daft one: Penfolds in Australia (as alluded to above) can’t sell their port as port, so they call it “tawny”. Not “tawny port”, just “tawny”. Doesn’t help anyone - just makes people wonder what the hell it is! I think the overwhelming majority of port drinkers care what it tastes like, not where it’s from, so the Portuguese producers are unlikely to be ‘protected’ from anything by the restriction.
When speaking casually, we Americans tend to call everything a city. “Village” isn’t a commonly used term in casual conversation. We might say “town” if we want to be more specific, but, generally speaking we don’t really make strict diatinctions for what is and isn’t a city.
The whole Havana Club situation is very complicated and is a matter of international disputes. The WTO has weighed in on it. Congress has passed legislation favoring Bacardi. The federal courts are still handling cases on it. It’s not even a high-volume product in the United States. At this point I would imagine that state regulators wouldn’t consider it a valuable use of their time. By this point everyone who is interested knows that the term is disputed.
These clowns ought to be sued, as they pretty much get it all wrong- it’s neither barbecue (no brisket or sausage, and no pintos or potato salad! :eek:), and it’s not similar to anything we get around here in Dallas.
But what does the city or state care about enough to sue? It doesn’t affect then negatively, even if it’s kind of pathetic.
That’s not the kind of use that’s likely to get any legal action. “Barbecue” is not a precise term for the majority of consumers–it can mean pretty much anything.
This post is mostly correct. Just naming something after somewhere else doesn’t make it from there. It’s a “style”, usually. Think “New York Pizza” served in Dayton Ohio.
But words have meaning, and in the case of the French, they have carefully designated laws that comprise their AOC (Apellation d’Origine Controlee), a codified set of laws that determine what wine grapes grow best where, what grapes you are allowed to grow in order to call the wine “from that place”, etc.
Not only that, but this goes back to monks in the Middle Ages learning about soil composition, which varieties grow best where, how to plant vines on certain hillsides to gain the proper amount of sunshine, and on and on. The French have a lot of practice in this regard.
Someone mentioned upthread about Champagne being always blended. That’s only true of non-vintage “house style” Champagnes. When a chateau declares a vintage, it mean a banner year for their grape crop, and mostly, the bubbly will be made from a single grape variety, OR a blend from that current vintage, not juice from a holdback year to soften a flinty cold growing season with too much acidity.
It bears mentioning that a lot of Champagne growers, due to it’s cool growing climate, often employ a method of introducing additional sugar during fermentation called chaptalization. Sometimes you need a little extra sugar to get the alcohol body you want in a good Champagne.
Listen to me, a two years sober alcoholic talking about wine. LOL.
Not to keep beating this horse, but why not? Does a consumer have to do a google search before buying a product? I didn’t know this about Havana Club until this thread, and I’m a lawyer (of course, with no experience in trademark law). Let’s put Havana Club aside if necessary.
Why can’t I bring a state law claim (I’m not) against Philadelphia Creme Cheese or Boston Baked Beans or Panama Hats as they misrepresent the geographical source of the product and induce a consumer in exactly the same way that my Helena Hamburger might do?
The United States is pretty much the only country that doesn’t do business with Cuba, which makes enforcing trademark law difficult. If you see a Cuban brand of anything in the US, it’s a sure bet that it didn’t come from Cuba.
Being in Canada, I can buy Cuban Havana Club rum at my local liquor store, and it appears on the shelf at my local sports bar. I cannot buy the Havana Club produced in Puerto Rico. Similarly, I can buy Cuban cigars at my local tobacconist: Bolivar, Romeo y Julieta, Cohiba, Fonseca, Partagas, and others. But I cannot buy cigars under these names that are produced outside of Cuba, and that are sold in the United States.
As I understand things, the interests that owned these trademarks, recipes, blends, and so on, thought they could take them with them when they fled Cuba. The Cuban government disagreed, and promptly took out trademark protection around the world–with the exception of the US, for obvious reasons. The owners, in turn, took out trademark protection in the US. Which is why you have Cuban Havana Club everywhere except the US, why you have Cuban Bolivar cigars everywhere except the US, and so on. Trademarks and logos themselves are quite similar to their Cuban counterparts, with minor differences (e.g. H. Upmann cigars from Cuba say “Havana” on the band, where H. Upmann cigars sold in the US say “1844,” the year the brand was founded in Cuba, in the same place.)
Now, if the producers of Puerto Rican Havana Club wanted to sell their product in Canada, they could do so, but not under the Havana Club name. They could change it to something Cuban sounding–say, “Cienfuegos Rum,” after the Cuban town–but they couldn’t use Havana Club, as the Cubans own the trademark in Canada.
Those who can’t, teach! Thanks for the post.
You might as well ask about Canadian bacon. I’d guess that fewer than one in ten Canadians can tell you what it is, because most Canadians don’t call it by that name.
It’s a style, is all; and as long as you use these ingredients, and prepare them in a certain way, they fit the style. I’m pretty sure that if you ordered “Canadian bacon” with your breakfast at Denny’s in West Virginia, the hogs it would be made from never saw Canada in their life. Somewhat similarly, a local place (since gone out of business) advertised the “best ‘Montreal smoked meat’ west of Montreal.” It wasn’t brought in from Montreal; it was prepared locally, according to the Montreal recipe, from local cows. (And the claim was true; it was the best I’ve had outside of Montreal, west or east of that city.)
Just checking in. Very interesting responses! I’ll have to read up on your links! (So much time, so little to do! - Strike that! Reverse it!) 
A very simple way of thinking about Champagne (the actual French product) is this: “All Champagnes are sparkling wines. Not all sparkling wines are champagnes.”