Like some of you, I enjoy a good cigar once in a blue moon, especially when I’m with some of my old buddies. A couple of days ago the WIPO dispute report showed Cohiba.com complaint denied in which made me ask the question: How does Fidel Castro’s personal cigar maker loose such a name? So I decided to do some digging and get to the bottom of it.
Apparently it’s been a international TM dispute for many years. There is the Swedish “Match North America” the parent company of the Richmond, Virginia-based General Cigar Inc., which has sold Dominican Republic-made Cohiba cigars in the U.S. since 1997. Then there is the world famous Habanos S.A. (Cubatabaco), founded in 1966 to make cigars for Castro and visiting dignitaries. It is equally owned by the Cuban government and Madrid-based Altadis SA, with its parent company Britain’s “Imperial Tobacco Group PLC”. Each of the two companies are claiming the rights to Cohiba brand, but due to the Cuban embargo placed by the US, it’s been an ongoing dispute here in the States.
What makes it more intriguing is, Habanos S.A. did not loose the WIPO domain dispute to General Cigar Inc., it lost to a private owner in Germany. It seems that WIPO is not taking any side on this one, and for obvious reasons. On the other hand it did award the dispute for the hyphenated domain name Cohiba-Cuban-Cigars.com to be transferred to Habanos S.A., taken away from a Chinese private owner, due to their registered TM in China.
Among all this international TM wars, it has become evident Habanos S.A. has realized the value of domain names and is now proactive in domain disputes. It will be interesting in following these disputes to see who will lay claim to the Cohiba domains and who will win. So stay tuned.
One thing is for sure, a Cuban cigar is well sought after by many aficionados and so are generic cigar related domains. 
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