[This post is authored by SpicyIP Intern Samridhi Chugh. Samridhi is a final-year student at the Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, and a graduate in Journalism from Lady Shri Ram College for Women. With a passion for the dynamic intersection of law, media and technology, she is particularly interested in exploring intellectual property and tech policy. Her previous posts can be accessed here.]
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in a public notice, dated September 27, 2024, has announced that the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is in the process of amending the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. For this purpose, it is now inviting comments and suggestions from concerned stakeholders and the general public on the to-be-proposed amendments.
Interested stakeholders can email their comments to ipr4-dipp@nic.in and ak.gupta38@nic.in by October 10, 2024, the last date of submission.
The Act, introduced over two decades ago, plays a crucial role in protecting the unique identity of region-specific products over those originating from other geographical areas by conferring Geographical Indication (GI) tags. Currently, the varied criticisms of the Act include the ambiguous definition of “producers” which leads to even “non-producers” and intermediaries benefiting from GIs, the lower degrees of protection, vis-à-vis the TRIPS Agreement, weak post-registration enforcement, among others.
The present notice, however, joins a series of previous announcements and calls-for-comments by the DPIIT which have significantly curtailed the consultation window from the recommended period of 30 days, as specified in the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014. The notice provides barely two weeks for stakeholders to respond, raising concerns about the drastically limited timeframe.
Moreover, there seems to be a pattern of delay in publishing the notices on the website. Though originally dated September 27, 2024, the notice was only published on the IP India website on September 30, 2024, further reducing the already brief period for public input.
Nonetheless, we strongly request interested stakeholders to send across their comments for consideration. SpicyIP will also be happy to publish any submitted comments, which can be sent at contact[at]spicyip[dot com.