The Geographical Indication (GI) tag may not be the most effective form of intellectual property protection available (brand names and patents are more effective). Still, it is an important way of providing the benefits of such safeguards to a large number of producers of unique goods in a specific geographical region. Yet, India seems to be slow in capitalising on this provision; no more than a handful of products have been accorded GI status in the five years after Parliament enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (registration and protection) Act. Even the premier long-grained aromatic rice, Basmati, is yet to be granted the GI label though it has faced numerous onslaughts abroad from brands that seek to pass themselves off as being akin to Basmati. As a result, scented rice varieties of other countries are being traded globally as Basmati or with similar epithets, such as Kasmati, Jasmati and the like. Had Basmati been covered under GI protection, the country would have been spared the protracted and costly legal battle against the US-based RiceTech Inc. and other companies that secured patents on Basmati. Registration of Basmati under the domestic GI statute (a global GI label would need Pakistan’s cooperation) would not only have served as a deterrent against such blatant infringement of trade rights but also made India’s case much easier to fight in foreign courts. Fortunately, the country has numerous unique products that qualify for GI protection, and which will help producers fetch better prices in the domestic and export markets. These include, among others, Kanchipuram silk sarees, Alphonso mangoes, Nagpur oranges, Bikaneri bhujia and Kolhapuri chappals. At present, only some teas and spices produced in specific geographical areas have been covered under the GI law, thus denying the benefit to other product categories.
Till the advent of the trade-related intellectual property rights (Trips) regime of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), international recognition of GIs was provided largely under the Convention on Bio-Diversity (CBD) and other such protocols. Trips gave teeth to the GI label, especially for trade purposes. However, Trips grants special favours to wines and spirits (under Article 23), which are revenue earners for the developed countries, while developing countries’ GI-worthy products have been provided only general protection (under Article 22). This makes it all the more important for countries like India to use their own GI legislation to guard their legitimate interests. It might be argued that the poor use of the GI law in India is a result largely of the fact that producers in many product categories are unorganised and, thus, cannot collectively seek such a privilege, but the commerce ministry has also failed to perform its duty of acting on their behalf. This needs to change. At the same time, the anomaly in the Trips agreement concerning discriminatory treatment of the products of developing countries vis-à-vis wines and spirits needs to be addressed. India may do well to take a lead on this issue by pressing for a review of the Trips agreement, though it is probably too late to do this as part of the Doha round of trade negotiations, although there are provisions for such a reassessment of the intellectual property regime.