The Greatest Name in Cigars Has Been in Legal Limbo for Nearly Thirty Years
There is no name in the premium cigar world that carries more weight than Cohiba. It conjures Havana at its most decadent, hand-rolled perfection, the smoky back rooms of power, and the private tastes of one of history's most theatrical strongmen. For decades, that name has also been the subject of one of the most complicated, protracted, and genuinely fascinating trademark battles in American legal history — a fight that pits Cold War politics against intellectual property law, and an American cigar company against the Cuban state itself. As of 2025, the courts have delivered what may be the most decisive blow yet in this saga, and the implications for cigar enthusiasts, the premium tobacco industry, and American trademark law are considerable.
Where the Name Comes From: The Origins of Cohiba
Cohiba cigars were first rolled in 1966, and the name owes its origin to the word used by Indigenous people centuries ago to refer to the tobacco leaves they smoked. Specifically, the name "Cohiba" is derived from the Taino word for tobacco. The brand did not emerge from the commercial marketplace in the ordinary sense. It was originally created in the 1960s in Cuba and was exclusively used for cigars made for Fidel Castro and other high-ranking officials of the Cuban government. The Cuban Cohiba brand was created in 1966 for Fidel Castro's personal use and was officially released to the public in 1982.
Cohiba differs from most of the other 31 active Cuban brands in that it was created after the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s, and notably after the Cuban government seized cigar factories and brands in 1959. Unlike Montecristo, which was created in 1935, or Partagás, created in 1845, there was no owner of Cohiba prior to the revolution. Cohiba was created by the Cuban government, first as a personal cigar for Fidel Castro before being launched worldwide in the 1980s. Castro, who died in 2016, puffed on Cohibas until he kicked the habit in 1985.
The Cuban Cohiba is produced exclusively by Cubatabaco — and later Habanos S.A. — using select Vuelta Abajo tobacco and a unique third fermentation process. That third fermentation, applied to the filler leaves, is what separates the Cuban Cohiba from virtually every other cigar on earth. It strips the tobacco of harshness and introduces a creaminess and complexity that have made it the benchmark against which every other premium cigar is measured. Cubatabaco applied for registration of the Cohiba mark in Cuba in 1969 and was granted a trademark in 1972.
General Cigar and the American Cohiba: How a Parallel Brand Was Born
Many American cigar aficionados are already aware that brands like Cohiba, Partagás, and Hoyo de Monterrey are originally Cuban lines, and have remained so everywhere else in the world except the United States. Ask for one of these cigars in any other country and they'll hand you a Cuban, but in the U.S. you'll get a completely different cigar made in Honduras or the Dominican Republic. The reason for this split identity reaches back to the early 1960s, when the Kennedy administration imposed a sweeping trade embargo on Cuba — one that has never been fully lifted.
General Cigar trademarked numerous Cuban brand names in the U.S. market, and since the Cuban embargo prevents Cuba from entering the U.S. cigar market, there would ostensibly be no trademark dispute. General Cigar started a very profitable run selling their version of the classics. General registered Cohiba in 1981 and then reregistered the trademark in 1995.
The timing of that original registration is, it turns out, the crux of the entire legal controversy. Between Cubatabaco's Cuban registration and General's filing for the mark in 1978, the brand had gained prominence, including mentions in Forbes magazine in November 1977 that it was one of the brands Cubatabaco was developing for possible export. Edgar Cullman, the former owner and president of General Cigar Co., acknowledged that he "must have read" the article as he received Forbes magazines. That meant that Cullman would have had knowledge of the registered brand prior to General's filing for it the following year.
By 1987, General Cigar had stopped selling cigars under the Cohiba name, but when Cigar Aficionado magazine named the Cohiba the world's best cigar in 1992, the stage was set for this battle. That 1992 ranking was a cultural earthquake in the premium cigar world. It transformed Cohiba from a connoisseur's reference point into a household name among a generation of American men who were discovering fine cigars for the first time. The commercial stakes of owning that name on American soil suddenly looked very different.
The Cuban and American Cohibas: Two Very Different Smokes
While many of the Cuban brands and their non-Cuban counterparts look nearly identical, Cohiba is unique in that the packaging has always been distinctly different. While the Cuban version relies on a gold and black color scheme — now with a graphic of the head of a Taino Indian — the non-Cuban version is known for its black and red color scheme, notably with the O in Cohiba filled in with red. That red-dot Cohiba, as it has come to be known in American shops and humidors, is a genuinely different product from its Cuban counterpart. The quality of the Dominican-made Cohibas continues to improve, and only the most inexperienced cigar smoker would confuse a Dominican Cohiba with the Cuban version.
The non-Cuban Red Dot Cohiba is sold in the United States through General Cigar Co. It has built its own loyal following over decades, with vitolas like the Cohiba Blue and the Black series becoming genuine fan favorites among American smokers. The brand's American iteration has been marketed aggressively, and for many enthusiasts who came of age during the cigar boom of the 1990s, the General Cigar Cohiba is the only Cohiba they have ever legally smoked. That emotional and commercial attachment is precisely what makes the legal dispute so consequential — and so bitterly contested.
The Legal Battle: A Timeline of Injunctions, Appeals, and Reversals
The Opening Shots: 1997 to 2000
Casually known as Cohiba vs. Cohiba, the Empresa Cubana del Tabaco vs. Culbro Corp. lawsuit started more than 25 years ago when Cubatabaco, owners of the Cohiba trademark, sued General Cigar Co. for its use of the Cohiba name in the United States. Cuba brought General to court in 1997. Three years later, some of the charges of unfair competition were dismissed, but the court put an injunction on General from selling Cohiba-branded cigars on trademark infringement grounds.
The Second Circuit Reversal and Reinstatement
Flash forward to 2006: General emerged victorious on appeal, with the Second Circuit court overturning the injunction on grounds that the Cuban embargo rendered any trademark dispute moot. But Cubatabaco pressed on, eventually convincing the court to reinstate the injunction against General Cigar in 2008. That case made its way all the way up to the Second Circuit, which blocked Cuba Tobacco from getting injunctive relief, saying that any court-ordered transfer of the trademark to a Cuban company would violate U.S. sanctions under the Cuban Assets Control Regulations.
In December 2009, Judge Sweet once again ruled in favor of the Cuban cigar industry when he issued an injunction for General Cigar Co. to stop selling its Cohiba cigars in the United States. In light of the constant appeals, General never actually had to stop selling Cohibas in America. Lucky for them, this litigation took no toll on their marketing efforts in the states. The revolving door of injunctions and appeals had created a legal limbo that allowed business to continue more or less as usual at retail — a paradox that illustrated just how thoroughly unprecedented this case was.
Dueling Circuit Courts and the TTAB
The case raises an interesting question: Does a country have any trademark rights in the United States when it's under an embargo? In the case of Cohiba — the most high-profile premium cigar brand in the world — one court of law believes it does. That question is not merely academic. It sits at the intersection of foreign policy, intellectual property law, and international treaty obligations, and the answer changes depending on which federal circuit is doing the answering.
The Federal Circuit and the Second Circuit don't agree on Cuba's legal right to cancel a U.S. trademark. That circuit split is the engine that kept this litigation alive long past the point when most commercial disputes would have been settled or abandoned. With no Supreme Court resolution in sight, both parties had strong strategic reasons to keep fighting.
The ruling on Friday came after the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on December 20 canceled General Cigar's trademark registrations for the term 'Cohiba' for cigars, said Habanos SA, a joint venture between Altadis of Britain and state-owned Cubatabaco. The ruling means Cubatabaco can register the Cohiba brand trademark — considered the best of its 27 kinds of cigars marketed in more than 100 countries — in the U.S. even though it cannot sell them there.
The 2023 Lawsuit and the 2025 Federal Ruling
In February 2023, General Cigar appealed the TTAB decision and filed additional claims seeking a declaration that Cubatabaco had no grounds to cancel General's Cohiba trademarks in the United States. Both suits were filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. General's position was unambiguous. "By initiating this lawsuit to appeal the TTAB decision and to obtain a declaration of its rights, General Cigar expects the court will ultimately rule it has exclusive U.S. rights to the Cohiba marks," said Régis Broersma, president of STG's North America and rest of world division.
That confidence proved misplaced. In May 2025, General Cigar lost the lawsuit. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema dismissed the case, ruling that the TTAB was within its legal right to cancel General's trademark registration, largely citing Article 8 of the Inter-American Convention Act. The decision was handed down by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
What the Court Actually Found
Judge Brinkema's decision quickly dismissed General's objections to Cubatabaco's evidence and found that the evidence suggested General knew about Cohiba prior to registering the brand in 1978. The Forbes magazine article was damning, but it wasn't the only smoking gun. The ruling established that the leading U.S. cigar company knew about Cubatabaco's use of Cohiba when it registered the name in March 1978. Key evidence included internal memos describing Cohiba as a pre-existing 'brand in Cuba' and 'Castro's cigar'.
One of General Cigar's primary arguments in the suit was the claim that Cuba allowed the Cohiba trademark to lapse from non-usage in the 1970s, but the court rejected this notion. Due to the long-running trade embargo, Cuban cigars cannot be sold or imported into the U.S., but the Pan-American Convention, of which both countries are members, says a company must cancel a trademark application when it knows another company is already using it in another member country.
The new ruling, issued by federal Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, reaffirms the previous decision of the TTAB and is based on the Inter-American Convention of 1929, which protects registered trademarks in other member countries. Brinkema points out that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — which handles trademark appeals — found that the Cuban Assets Control Regulations allow for Cubatabaco to apply for these trademarks because of specific exemptions for trademarks.
Cuba Wins — But Still Can't Sell a Single Cigar
Empresa Cubana del Tabaco has prevailed in its long-running legal battle against General Cigar, with the U.S. District Court ruling in its favour over the U.S. trademark rights to Cohiba cigars. The court upheld the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's decision to invalidate General Cigar's Cohiba trademark registrations following proceedings initiated by Cubatabaco. The removal of General Cigar's registrations allows Cubatabaco to register Cohiba in the USA.
The strange irony at the heart of this victory is impossible to ignore. As General Cigar Co. notes, Cubatabaco has never sold a Cohiba cigar in the U.S. during the 25 years of litigation. Even with General Cigar Co.'s trademarks canceled, the company would still be prevented from doing so. The ongoing embargo prevents the legal sale of Cuban cigars in the country. Cubatabaco can now own the name in the American market — a market it cannot legally enter. It is a legal paradox that has no clean precedent and no obvious resolution.
Cubatabaco's response was measured but emphatic. Speaking on behalf of Cubatabaco, Lisset Fernández García said: "We are pleased that both Judge Brinkema and the U.S. Trademark Board have shown a willingness to recognize and enforce Cubatabaco's treaty rights, even though the U.S. embargo currently prevents the sale of Cuban cigars in the United States. This confirms our position that, from the beginning, the rights to Cohiba legitimately belong to the Cuban company."
What Happens to the American Cohiba Now?
As of May 2025, General Cigar is legally required to stop using the Cohiba name in the U.S. unless the decision is overturned on appeal. The company is currently considering further legal action, but the ruling represents a major victory for Cubatabaco and could force a full rebrand of Cohiba cigars sold in the United States. General put out a statement reaffirming that it is still selling Cohiba in the U.S. and is considering its options to appeal.
Another appeal is still pending. Given the history of this case, that appeal should surprise no one. General Cigar has fought through injunctions, reversals, TTAB rulings, and circuit court splits for nearly three decades, and there is every reason to believe it will continue. The commercial value of the Cohiba name in the American market is enormous, and walking away from it without exhausting every legal avenue would be difficult for any company to justify to its shareholders.
For the average American cigar smoker, the near-term practical implications are murkier than the legal headlines suggest. In light of the constant appeals, General never actually had to stop selling Cohibas in America throughout prior rounds of this fight, and it is reasonable to expect that pattern to continue while further appeals are processed. The cigars, for now, remain on the shelves of American tobacconists. Whether they will carry the Cohiba name five years from now is a question that only the courts — and perhaps the U.S. Congress on the matter of the embargo itself — can answer.
The Broader Stakes: What This Case Means for U.S. Trademark Law
After nearly 30 years of litigation, a federal court has canceled General Cigar's U.S. trademarks for Cohiba cigars — all because of a little-known treaty and a Cuban brand once favored by Fidel Castro. The question of what this means for U.S. trademark law and the future of the Cohiba brand is far from settled.
The ruling's reliance on the Inter-American Convention of 1929 — a treaty that predates the Cuban Revolution, the embargo, and the Cold War itself — is the most legally significant aspect of the decision. The convention obligates member nations to recognize and protect trademarks that are already registered in other member countries. By applying this treaty in a context where the U.S. embargo on Cuba is still fully in force, Judge Brinkema's ruling creates a new and uncomfortable tension in American trade law. The embargo is federal policy. The Inter-American Convention is federal treaty obligation. When those two things point in opposite directions, the courts have to choose — and in this case, they chose the treaty.
The case revolves around a 2005 opinion from the Second Circuit holding that Cubatabaco, as a Cuban company that can't sell Cuban cigars in the United States, couldn't acquire the U.S. trademark for the Cohiba name from General Cigar. That 2005 logic has now been substantially undermined. The Eastern District of Virginia arrived at the opposite conclusion, and the circuit split that results from those conflicting positions could eventually force the Supreme Court to weigh in. For trademark attorneys and intellectual property scholars, this case has become required reading.
The ruling also carries implications beyond the cigar industry. Other Cuban brands have non-Cuban American counterparts operating under similar trademark arrangements — Partagás, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, and H. Upmann all have U.S. versions sold by General Cigar or its competitors. If the logic of the Cohiba ruling is applied consistently, none of those arrangements is necessarily safe from challenge. The Cohiba case could become the template for a wave of similar disputes that reshapes the landscape of American premium cigars.
The Aficionado's Perspective: More Than Just a Legal Footnote
For the men who actually smoke these cigars — the collectors who maintain walk-in humidors, the enthusiasts who travel to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to tour factories, the guys who keep a box of sticks on the shelf for occasions that demand something serious — this legal saga is not just an intellectual curiosity. It goes to the heart of what a brand name means, and whether the name on a band should carry any reliable information about what's inside the wrapper.
When cigar lovers hear the name "Cohiba," they envision prestige, luxury, and deep heritage. But behind the famous name lies one of the most controversial and longest-running trademark disputes in the premium cigar world. One Cohiba is the pride of Cuba, crafted for Fidel Castro and rolled in Havana. The other is an American-made version sold under trademark protection by General Cigar Company in the United States.
The distinction between the two products matters enormously to anyone who has smoked both. The Cuban Cohiba is widely considered among the finest cigars on earth, and its Lancero and Siglo series have achieved something close to mythological status in collector circles. The American version, made in the Dominican Republic, is a well-constructed, genuinely enjoyable cigar with its own character — but it is a different product, made from different tobacco, in a different country, with a different flavor profile. The fact that they share a name has caused decades of confusion among casual smokers and has long frustrated serious aficionados on both sides of the debate.
A forced rebrand, should it come to that, would be a seismic event for the American premium cigar market. General Cigar has built an infrastructure of retail partnerships, marketing campaigns, and brand recognition around the Cohiba name that took decades to construct. Walking away from it — even under legal compulsion — would require one of the most significant brand repositioning efforts the industry has ever seen. What name would take Cohiba's place? What would happen to the retailers who have built their own identities around carrying and recommending it? These are the questions that tobacconists, distributors, and brand managers are quietly beginning to ask.
A Fight That Isn't Over
It's the trademark case that refuses to die and it's still under litigation. That assessment, made even before the 2025 ruling, remains the most accurate summary of the Cohiba legal saga available. The legal dispute between Cubatabaco and General Cigar dates back to 1997, when proceedings began before the Trademark Board. Since then, the case has navigated over two decades of legal battles in U.S. federal and administrative courts, amidst an adverse political climate for the Cuban regime's economic interests.
What makes this case genuinely extraordinary — beyond the cigars, the Cold War politics, the dueling circuit courts, and the international treaty arguments — is the underlying absurdity of the situation. A Cuban state enterprise has won the right to own a trademark in a market it is legally forbidden from entering. An American company that has been selling a product under a name for more than forty years may be forced to abandon that name because its founder read a magazine article in 1977. And somewhere in Havana, master rollers continue to produce what many consider the world's finest cigar under that same name, while American enthusiasts can only obtain those cigars through grey-market channels or trips abroad.
This legal battle touches on issues of intellectual property, embargo law, and brand identity in ways that have no easy resolution. Until the embargo falls, or the Supreme Court settles the circuit split, or General Cigar succeeds in yet another appeal, the name Cohiba will mean two different things to two different groups of people — separated not by taste or quality, but by the lingering machinery of a geopolitical conflict that began before most of the men now smoking these cigars were born. In the meantime, the humidor stays stocked, the bands stay on, and the smoke keeps rising.
