The socio-economic impact of Geographical Indication tag

The term Geographical Indication got its prominence with the victory of West Bengal against its adjacent state Odisha over the sweet delicacy rosogolla! The dispute started in 2015 when West Bengal applied for a Geographical Indication status for Banglar Rosogolla. Against this, Odisha put forward its claim that rosogolla is being served as a prasad to Lord Jagannath at the Puri Temple for more than thousand years as kheer mohana, and later as pahala rasagolla.

The counter claim of West Bengal was that rosogolla was made famous by certain families of Bagbazar which opened street shops and prepared rosogolla in nineteenth century Kolkata. Further, they also submitted certain records to assert that the then-Governor General of India, Warren Hastings, also relished the delicacy. After a prolonged bitter battle over this sweetmeat, the Geographical Indications Registry under commerce ministry subsequent to its due investigation, granted the rights to West Bengal on November 14, 2017. The unresolved claim is: How could the registry find evidence in discovering the area from where initially rosogolla originated especially when Odisha was a part of Bengal until early 1900s!

Geographical Indication (hereinafter, GI), a distinct class of Intellectual Property, classifies definite properties whose explicit features are associated with their geographical derivation. It could thus be believed to epitomise a source and value ‘stamp’ for certain goods. This concept was developed to assure security against forgeries, abuse, misappropriation and parallel conflicts.

The World Trade Organization took into account the consumers’ mounting curiosity in the origin and quality of the properties attained and eventually incorporated Article 22 under the Agreement on TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) that deals with Protection of Geographical Indications. This effort definitely has brought in benefits to manufacturers for they could market the products under special “distinctive product” patterns. Convinced of the commercial advantages and countless trade prospective in GI mark, India, like many other countries, has been actively working on this which led to the adoption of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, coupled with the ‘Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002. The special recognition of Darjeeling Tea, Hyderabad Pearls, Paschmina shawls, Nagpur Oranges, etc. had brought in identity of a national heritage and generated substantial advantage to the rural economy.

The pearly white, lip-smacking rosogolla indeed had brought in disputes amid the states that poses the question whether Geographical Indication debate is driven by political interests. With the commerce and industry ministry’s ongoing social media campaign #LetsTalkIP to promote Indian GIs, all the states are in a mad rush to identify their own products.

By ‘winning’ a GI tag, each state has been obliged to endorse its own culture over the other. It is high time to appreciate that any product within any state territory belongs to all of India and argument over it on ‘regionalism’ would fail the objective of GI Act. In this regard, the judgment of Justice Danckwerts in J Bollinger vs The Costa Brava Wine Co Ltd case[1961] 1 WLR 271 is significant. It was stated that “GIs become marketing tools to sell GI products with a competitive advantage – the GI name – in the international market. In this respect, GIs become tools that capitalise on the association between the names and the geographical locations even when this association is based simply on an historical reputation rather than on the accurate geographical origin of the products.”

Undoubtedly these rights are attached to its geographical environment and owned exclusively by the community within a specific area; however the chances of uneven distributional system might separate “insiders” (producers who can benefit from a given Geographical Indication) from “outsiders” (those who cannot). If the higher price commanded by the product on account of GI protection is confined to the more authoritative actors on the upper stream of the supply chain and do not filter down to the weaker segments of the chain, it will invalidate the development implications of GI shield. In order to inspect the socio-economic consequences of a GI, the complete supply chain of the product concerned needs to be surveyed.

Though GI protection may undeniably reinforce the sector concerned by yielding fiscal profits, these benefits may not be pooled justifiably among various stakeholders along the supply chain of the product.

Additionally, the special recognition through Geographical Indication should never encourage producers to do anti-competitive practices like cartels and escalation of product prices.

The authors are assistant professors at Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA