The main purpose of this paper is to address selective topics of Cuba’s intellectual property laws, to compare them with U.S. laws, when applicable, and to address potential effects on U.S. intellectual property (IP) rights. CURRENT CUBAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGISLATION Patents and Utility Models Cuban patent laws are codified in Decree 68 of May 14, […]

Notes1 Cuba’s purchasing and distribution system servicing the market for dollar foods2 is decentralized and complex. It is composed of: (1) retail stores trading only with dollars, (2) hotels and restaurants catering to tourists for dollars, (3) food processing companies that sell a portion of their production within Cuba for dollars, and (4) institutions that […]

Notes1 The Cuban regime has survived three major pressures for change in the last two decades: the democratic wave that swept both left- and right-wing dictatorships in Latin America in the 1980s; the demise of the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s; and a major economic depression at home in the 1989-1994 period. The continuity […]

Notes1 The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries ushered in a new stage in Cuba, stage which Fidel Castro himself called “a special period.” In this period, we have witnessed the emergence of civil society—fragile but nonetheless real. At the same time, the 1990s and the present have also […]

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The Trends and Underlying Forces “If the causes of violent conflict are not addressed …the inhuman and barbaric behavior that fuels war will continue” —The Hon. Jeff Radebe The Cold War, in which superpowers sought to maintain a global balance of power without resorting to nuclear arms, masked many local, intrastate conflicts […]