Reliance seeks GIs for petro products

Application under scrutiny of controller-general of patents, designs and trademarks.

Reliance Industries Ltd has filed a geographical indicators (GIs) application for its Krishna-Godavari gas and for its Jamnagar petrol, diesel and LPG.

While a trademark is used to distinguish a good or a service of one enterprise from another's, GIs are used to identify goods having special characteristic and originating from a definite geographical territory.

The application of the company, filed late last year, is being examined by the office of the controller-general of patents, designs and trademarks, which is the registrar of GIs.

Officials in the department of industrial policy and promotion, the nodal authority for patents and trademarks, confirmed that the company had filed an application.

If the company is granted GI, it will make Reliance Industries the authorised user of the products. A GI, which is valid for 10 years, will also allow the company to take legal action for any infringement.

An infringement can be in the form of any unauthorised use indicating or suggesting that such goods originate in a geographical area other than their actual place of origin or when the use of another GI results in unfair competition, such as passing it off as a registered GI.

Government officials, however, pointed out that while a GI is a public property belonging to producers of concerned goods, it cannot be made a subject matter of assignments, transmission, licensing or mortgages.