The Hindu Business Line : Campaign against counterfeit goods

India should devise sound and foolproof mechanisms for protecting its own products from being counterfeited and strengthen its intellectual property rights regime.

G. Srinivasan

India’s Basmati rice, Darjeeling tea and Alphonso mangoes, all have their fake counterparts being sold across the world with impunity, and domestic producers of these products have been wringing their hands helplessly.

There is no doubt about India’s commitment to intellectual property rights (IPRs) and its intention to bring these products under the Geographic Indications (GIs) list. But the delay and dithering in pressing ahead with these matters of serious import would prevent Indian producers from deriving any benefit from these exotic varieties of products that are sui generis to India.

Lest the lack of a sense of urgency in attempts to preserve the name of India’s location-specific products should deny the country the benefits arising from their real worth and value for money, it is time the Indian authorities took some pointers from the recent European Union (EU) initiative in this regard.

On October 23, the European Commission announced in Strasbourg that it would seek a mandate from European member-countries to negotiate a new Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with major trading partners including the United States, Japan, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand.

The ACTA’s objective is to evolve a high-level global framework that bolsters the international enforcement of intellectual property rights and helps safeguard consumers from the health and safety risks associated with many counterfeit products.

Wider range

It is interesting to know from the EU that two decades ago, counterfeiting might have been deemed a problem chiefly for the makers of luxury items. In the 1980s, 70 per cent of firms hit by counterfeiting were in this sector.

But last year, more than 1.6 million counterfeit cosmetics/personal care products and 1.2 million food items and beverages were seized at the EU’s external border, out of a total of 130 million fake objects — a spurt of 40 per cent since 2005. Now in Europe one can buy fake aeroplane parts, electrical appliances and toys, according to a EU report, which adds that the scariest part is the booming trade in counterfeit medicines, of which more than 2.7 million were intercepted at the EU borders in 2006. These products account for almost 10 per cent of world trade in medicine.

Ironically, most of these fake drugs are headed for the world’s poorest countries, as the latter often have neither the means nor the machinery to assess the genuineness of medicines.

Foolproof safeguards

The Paris-based inter-governmental think-tank of 30 rich industrial countries, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), reckoned in a report this year that the annual value of international physical trade in counterfeited consumer goods is $200 billion, an amount equivalent to 2 per cent of world trade and higher than the gross domestic product of 150 countries!

Even as rich countries belonging to the EU and the OECD are exercised over the counterfeit goods flooding the global market, with gullible consumers being the silent victims, both in their own backyard and all across the world, countries like India should be aware of the perils of letting such goods float around unchecked, with their own better products getting replaced by fakes unobtrusively.

It is encouraging to note that the European Commission is including strong IPR chapters in all its new series of Free Trade Agreements with India, Korea, the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) and Latin America. India, on its part, should devise sound and foolproof mechanisms for protecting its own products from being counterfeited and strengthen its intellectual property rights regime to prevent the domestic market from becoming a dumping ground for all kind of fakes.

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