Branding in Puerto Rico through the Lens of the Coffee Industry

• Author: Jennifer L. Rodriguez
• Pages: 44-63

Published in Landslide, Volume 14, Number 3, 2022. © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the

American Bar Association.

44

Images: Getty Images

Branding in Puerto

Rico through the Lens

of the Cof‌fee Industry

Published in Landslide, Volume 14, Number 3, 2022. © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the

American Bar Association.

44

By Jennifer L. Rodriguez

Jennifer L. Rodriguez is a German-American attorney

who has advised on trademark and copyright issues

for boutique f‌irms and start-ups. She can be reached at

jennifer.l.rodriguez@outlook.com.

P

uerto Rico is a region of innovation and growth, as

evidenced by the number of trademarks led both

in Puerto Rico and by Puerto Ricans with the U.S.

Patent and Trademark Ofce (USPTO) and the Puerto Rico

Trademark and Trade Name Ofce. However, some have

questioned whether this growth is improving the everyday

lives of Puerto Ricans. A few local farmers and artisans

have persisted in spite of the challenges, including the

complexity of the legal landscape. They need counsel who

are familiar with local and federal trademark requirements,

as both are applicable on “The Island.” In this article, the

coffee industry is examined as a microcosm of how local

communities could navigate branding their goods if they

were willing to come together to organize themselves in

spite of the unique challenges presented by Puerto Rico’s

political and natural environments.

Introduction to Coee from Puerto Rico

A visit to a boutique coffee plantation in Adjuntas, Puerto

Rico, just as the United States was opening up from the

pandemic in early 2021 revealed the legal challenges faced

by local farmers. Adjuntas is not an area of Puerto Rico that

most tourists will know. To get there, one travels away from

the beaches and heat and up into the cool, rainy wooded

mountains. To refer to the roads leading there as bad would

be an understatement. They are narrow, unmarked in places,

switching from asphalt to dirt and merging with the edges

of cliffs. In this area, as one navigates the wildness of the

terrain, the government seems strangely absent, but for the

isolated electric lines. However, the trek into the moun-

tains, dangerous as it may seem, is well worth it to taste the

locally grown mountain coffee beans directly from the farm-

ers. They take great pride in the quality of the product but

Published in Landslide, Volume 14, Number 3, 2022. © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the

American Bar Association.

45