The Hindu Business Line : Much catching up to do on the trademark race

WHAT'S common for these: Unilever's `Lipton' and `Care of India', Garware Polyester's `Sun control', `Global Window Film' and `Garfilm', red circles of Mirza Tanners from Kanpur, and `Assam Tea' of J.V. Gokal from Kolkata? These are all among the very few Indian registrations in the Intellectual Property Digital Library of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Geneva.

A simple search for `India' on the organisation's IP library produced less than 50 results from among a collection that includes patents, trademarks, industrial designs and so on. Quite disappointingly, the actual number is far less, because the 50 included applications from outside the country for various logs with the word `India' in them, a cosmetic named `Secrets of India', beverage called `Industan Instant Coffee', Gold Onyx China's `Reflections of India' and so forth. Also to be excluded are instances of `Indian ink' and `India rubber'.

There are no immediate statistics on how many applications were from India among the nearly 30,000 that WIPO received for international trademark in 2004, a 24 per cent rise compared to 2003. More than 4 lakh international trademark registrations belonging to over one lakh different trademark holders are already on the International Register. This is the equivalent of "some 5 million national registrations", because "on average, each international registration extends its effects to some 12 designated countries," explains WIPO.

The international trademark registration system is known as the `Madrid' system, and "is a user-friendly and cost-effective service" from WIPO to facilitate "the process of securing trademark protection in multiple countries," one learns from www.wipo.int. Two international treaties, viz. the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol, govern the system. Significantly, the US and the European Community are part of the Madrid Protocol.

A recent communiqué from WIPO informs that for the twelfth consecutive year Germany has topped the list of biggest users with 5,393 international applications. It is followed by France with 3,503, Italy 2,499, Benelux 2,482, Switzerland 2,133, and the US 1,734 applications.

Though not in the top league, it is noteworthy that China has almost doubled its applications, achieving a 115 per cent growth. Down Under too shot beyond 100 per cent. Some of the other achievers in terms of growth percentage are: Republic of Korea 87, Bulgaria 83, Japan 76, UK 36, Italy 31, Singapore 26, and Sweden 24.

Among the top 20 users of the Madrid System in 2004 are Henkel, Volkswagen and Siemens of Germany; Novartis and Nestlé of Switzerland; Unilever and Philips of Netherlands; and L'Oréal, Merck and Biofarma of France.

By filing "one application, in one language, with one set of fees, in one currency (Swiss francs)," a trademark owner can have a mark protected in up to 76 countries, after due examination by WIPO. Renewing is also a streamlined single procedure. "Trademark protection hinders moves by unfair competitors to `free ride' on the goodwill of a company by using similar distinctive signs to market inferior or similar products or services," instructs WIPO, but that seems to be a message lost on Indian companies.

E&OE@TheHindu.co.in

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