Thanks to a 2002 law known as the terrorism risk insurance act TRIA, which allows Americans to collect judgments against sovereign nations,If a country like Cuba appears on the US state depart's list of nations that sponsor terrorism,then they can sue and try to obtain their trademarks of these famous brands.
I'm talking state and federal court in the good old USA!
One Cuban American family recently won a 100 million dollar judgment out of a Florida State court. Although that same florida state voided this amount and deemed it collectible of just one million, but if this goes in the federal court as expected next month that federal court may decide that the entire 100 million is allowable.
How will they Collect the Money?
The judge would then then seize the trademark that's owned by the Cuban government and auction it off here in the united states to the highest bidder. Next, that person i.e highest bidder would most likely distribute some of that money that they paid for the trademark to the Cuban American victim's family. Also, Cuba's cooperation with paying most likely depends on the end of the Cuban Trade embargo. Trademark law experts say this really dependson that embargo finally going away, so this is actually something that could be years and years down the road before anything money is seen by the victims. However, Trademark law experts say that the European Union and the World Trade Organization is working on, pushing this, because typically nations respect each others trademarks.
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