India and international registration of trade marks

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : JOINING THE MADRID SYSTEM: "THE GOVERNMENT HAS indicated that it has decided 'in principle' that India should join the Madrid System for international registration of trade marks and service marks. It has taken six years for New Delhi to think of a step that should have logically followed the momentous decision it took in 1998 to join the Paris Convention on the protection of industrial property, which lays down minimum legal standards for intellectual property rights (IPRs). The accession to the convention followed a realisation that the country was irreversibly moving towards the grant of product patents for drugs, foods, and agrochemicals as an obligation under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of 1994, and that abstention from the convention had lost its rationale.

The Government then made the best out of what was widely perceived as a bad bargain, by acceding to a facility that the convention offers to signatories. This is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), under which nationals and residents of member states can seek patents in more than 120 countries by filing a single application, in a single language, and at low cost, besides accessing a global novelty search.

Trade marks are as important for manufacturers and consumers as flags and poll symbols are for parties and voters. They should be considered necessary elements of the rule of law. The Madrid System governing trade marks offers a convenient procedural mechanism similar to what the PCT does in the case of patents; it is quite indispensable in the era of globalisation. As in the case of the patent system, decisions on trade mark registration will remain with the national authorities. "