Tripura lost GI tag for a new variety of Jack Fruit

Providing an indication concerning the origination of a particular good or product is, in common parlance, known as Geographical Indication (GI). It not only increases the goodwill of a certain place but also affixes a sort of indirect guarantee in terms of the product quality. Geographical Indications are enumerated under Section 22 (1) of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement as “indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin.”

In our homeland India, GI are protected and governed under ‘Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act of 1999’. For registration of a particular product as a GI, an association of persons or producers or any organization or authority representing the interests of such producers in those goods or products can file an application for the same in accordance with Section 11 of the parent Act. Once all the formalities are accurately completed, the Registrar will issue a Certificate of Registration to the applicant or any other authorized person, by virtue of Section 16 of the Act.

Factually, Darjeeling Tea was the foremost product to get a GI tag dating back to 2004. Upcoming years brought along registration of products like Nagpur Oranges, Mysore Silk, Kullu Shawls, etc.

Recently, an application as regards to Registration for GI of Tripura Jackfruit was rejected by the Geographical Indications Registry of Chennai. The said application was filed by North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation Limited before the concerned Registry somewhere in December 2018, upon which the Registrar decided to take the application before an expert committee, in order to verify the details and contents of the application for fruitful conclusion.

After exhaustively going through the application, the expert committee found the application to be incomplete and concluded their recommendation by adducing that the indication is not an ages old product rather a fairly new devised term and therefore, the same cannot be granted a GI tag. In spite of this, the applicant was given an opportunity to provide an apt justification as regards to the qualities, uniqueness and historical usage of the product in its native region since years, however the applicant, failed to provide any historical data or distinctiveness of the product. 

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