In a first step to protect brand ‘Khadi’, a symbol of India’s struggle for Independence, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has applied for registration of the trademark in India before moving to claim the international trademark, the MSME Ministry said on Wednesday.
The move follows reports of the ‘Khadi’ trademark already being registered in Germany, Spain, Hungary and in India.
In a written reply to a question by P Srinivasa Reddy in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for MSME Giriraj Mishra said “the process to register international trademark for ‘Khadi’ for intellectual property rights under the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Madrid Protocol is of two stages; first, at the national and subsequently at the international level. KVIC has applied to register the trademark for ‘Khadi’ under appropriate classes.”
Asked if the Government was facing a trademark hurdle in countries where it had already been registered, Singh said the issue was brought to the Government’s notice by the Indian Embassies in Germany, Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union, as also by traders and merchant exporters who were not able to market ‘Khadi’ products there.
Incidentally, ‘Khadi’ has already been registered by a German company (Khadi Natureprodukte GbR) as a trademark, with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market in Spain, giving it exclusive rights for use of the term. The Minister said that while KVIC was not directly exporting Khadi products, “Indian Embassies were in touch with the EU authorities for cancellation of registration of Khadi as a trademark and the only available means to cancel the registration is through a request for declaration of invalidity or of revocation…”
Singh said that the Government, KVIC and Indian Embassies were working in tandem to expedite the process of deregistering the ‘khadi’ trademark, adding that KVIC, Mumbai, had authorised Swati Gramudyog Sewa Sansthan, Kanpur, “to file for deregistering the trademark along with requisite fees, which has been filed”.