Arts. 85 and 86 of the Law No. 35 establish that telecommunication services be provided by state companies. This presents restrictions or exclusions to foreign companies in the Telecommunications sector and in the Technology, Information and Communication sector (Chapter II, Sections Four and Eight). Currently, the Cuban Telecommunications Company has full ownership of telecommunications services. Therefore, foreign companies face a monopolistic barrier on the part of the national company in the telecommunications sector that includes services such as basic telephone services, signal conduction, data transmission, cellular land mobile telecommunications, virtual telephony, public telephone booths and stations, internet access, trunked mobile radio communication, provision of applications in the Internet environment and subscription television.

The Cuban Telecommunications Company. S.A. (ETECSA) has a state monopoly on telecommunications services and goods. Art. 1 of Decree No. 321 grants the administrative concession to ETECSA, enabling it to provide public telecommunications services granted in the national territory in the modalities, for the term and under the conditions established in the decree. This Decree updates Decree 275 of 2003 of the Council of Ministers, giving it a period of up to 2023 to continue controlling all telecommunications services.

According to Decree-Law No. 370, there is an obligation for passive infrastructure sharing in the country to deliver telecom services to end users. It is practiced in the mobile sector and in the fixed sector based on commercial agreements.

The country lacks a comprehensive framework in place that provides effective protection of trade secrets, but there are limited measures addressing some issues related to them. According to Art. 429.2 of the Penal Code (Law 151/2022), shall be punished by imprisonment for six months to two years or a fine of two hundred to five hundred quotas or both whoever, without due authorization, discloses, divulges, registers or exploits in the country or abroad, an undisclosed invention or information that should remain confidential and causes damages to its legitimate owner. Moreover, although private contracts may exist between the contracting party and the bidder, the possibility is left open that certain contracts may not be executed if they do not correspond to the priorities of the Cuban State.

Cuba has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

Cuba has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonogram Treaty.

It has been reported that hundreds of thousands of Cuban households infringe copyright of online content by subscribing to a privately distributed weekly bundle of movies, shows, games and apps known as “El Paquete” (The Package) that circulates on memory sticks and hard drives. "El Paquete" comprises a one terabyte hard drive of the latest Hollywood movies, TV series and music compiled by hundreds of distributors and delivered to the home of the subscriber, who then has 24 hours to copy the information to their computer. It costs around 5 CUC (Cuban convertible peso) a week, which is roughly USD 6.50.

Cuba is a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). However, the country does not consider itself bound by Art. 59 related to disputes.

Cuba has a copyright regime under the Law No. 154 of 2022. However, the exceptions do not follow the fair use or fair dealing model, therefore limiting the lawful use of copyrighted work by others. Art. 86 lists the exceptions, including the use of: creations in accessible formats for persons with disabilities, to the extent required by them; conferences, speeches and other works of the same nature, broadcast in public, when such use is justified by the informative purpose pursued; creations resulting from academic or research activities, such as degree works, science, technology and innovation projects, academic articles; among others.

According to Art. 15.4 of Decree-Law 290/2012, an agent residing in Cuba must mediate in the event that the patent applicant does not have a domicile or real and effective industrial establishment or commercial establishment in Cuba.

According to Art. 28.2, the nationality or residence status of directors is not limited to Cubans and does not require that at least some be Cuban. This is left up to the companies. However, Art. 28.1 requires that employees must be national or reside in the country.

Art. 1 of Resolution No. 206/2018 on Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment establishes the Commission for the Evaluation of Businesses with Foreign Investment as the advisory body of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment in charge of monitoring and evaluating matters that are submitted to the consideration of that body or correspond to it in accordance with its functions. Art. 22 establishes that the controls and analysis of the Commission are based on economic and social criteria that include studies on the impact of the investment in the local market, its duration, the social objective of the project, the potential for job creation and the origin of the supply of labor force, and the data belonging to the investors themselves. In addition, within the indicators, there are also those that concern the impact on the environment as part of the evaluation. Resolution No. 207 establishes three annexes of the methodologies to be followed for the controls and evaluations of businesses with foreign investment.

The only internet provider company in Cuba is the state company "Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A." (ETECSA). According to Decree Law No. 35 in its Title III - Art. 1, "The Cuban State is the owner of public telecommunications services and has the power to regulate, order, control and supervise the different telecommunications/ICT services and networks." ETECSA has been a monopoly since 2003, as the result of its merger with CUBACEL. At that time, the provision of fixed-line telephone operation services and mobile providers was unified. Since then, additional telecommunications services have been provided exclusively by ETECSA.

Cuba is not a party to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), nor does it have observer status.

Arts. 85 and 86 of the Decree-Law No. 35 establish that telecommunication services have to be provided by state companies, therefore excluding foreign companies. Currently, the "Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A" (ETECSA) has full ownership of telecommunications services, including basic telephone services, signal conduction, data transmission, cellular land mobile telecommunications, virtual telephony, public telephone booths and stations, Internet access, trunked mobile radio communication, provision of applications in the Internet environment and subscription television.