The government introduced a new legislative proposal in parliament on Sunday, with an aim to safeguard the patent rights of the country’s century-old indigenous products.
If enacted, the proposed bill, titled Geographical Indicative Products (Registration and Protection) Act 2013, would protect the country’s claims to commodities such as hilsa fish, Jamdani sari, nakshi kantha, pineapple, and fazli mango.
Industries Minister Dilip Barua placed the bill in the parliament, in line with the agreement made between Bangladesh and the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on January 1,
1995.
The bill was later sent to the parliamentary standing committee on industries ministry for further scrutiny.
According to the act, Geographical Indications is a sign which defines the source and contains the goodwill of a product that originated in a particular area, like Hilsha from Padma, Chamcham from Tangail and Kanchagolla from Natore.
The objective of introducing the act is to protect the interest of the producers by using a particular sign through registering.
As per the bill, a separate unit will be formed under the Department of Patent, Design and Trademark to operate on works related to geographical indicative products.
The unit will conserve a detailed list of geographical indicative products from across the country as a primary database of the local products.
The validity of a particular registered geographical indication product will remain for five years. The producer would have to apply for re-registering after the validity expires.
Any person or organization will be punished with three years of imprisonment and Tk200,000 fine for producing, transporting, storing and selling of a particular geographical indication product by providing false and fabricated information.
Similar punishment will be charged for marketing of a particular registered product which had expired its validity, and for breaching the conditions of the registration as a geographically indicative product.
