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Row over basmati far from over

Arvind Padmanabhan in New Delhi

Has India really won the case against US-based RiceTec Incorporated in the controversial basmati trademark and patent issue?

A visit to the Alvin, Texas-based food technology firm's Web site will disprove any such conclusive claim as the site continues to use the term basmati to describe a few of its rice products.

"Our 'Texmati' rice, marketed for over 20 years, is the number one brand of American basmati rice sold in US supermarkets," claims RiceTec.

"Each of our varieties provide a special quality, taste or texture and their identity is preserved from farm through package to ensure truly premium quality."

Says Amardeep Singh, a patents lawyer and a senior functionary of the Italy-based International Association of Attorneys on Intellectual Property Rights: "Where is the question of victory? This is not a patents issue alone."

Singh, who is also vice president of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association, adds: "The larger issue of restraining RiceTec from calling some of its rice varieties grown in the US as 'American basmati' remains unresolved."

AIPPI and APAA are associations that influence policy at the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the World Trade Organisation on issues such as patents protection, trademarks and geographical indication.

The government's Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, which is fighting 40 basmati patent cases in 25 countries, says restraining RiceTec from using basmati as a generic term in the US is difficult.

"America does not have a geographical indication act. The fact that we are yet to define basmati's exclusiveness within India on the basis of geographical indication dilutes our locus standi," says APEDA chairman Anil Swarup.

But Praveen Anand, a noted intellectual property rights attorney, says the issue of geographical indication is well documented in the WTO agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, to which the US is a signatory.

"The real victory will come when India uses TRIPS and prevents basmati from being used as a generic term. Having a geographical indication act does help. But cases can be won even on the basis of common law or the law of torts."

India's Parliament witnessed uproarious scenes Tuesday when opposition members said the country's basmati exports could suffer as a result of the US Patent and Trademark Office granting patents on three lines of basmati to RiceTec.

The government contended that the verdict was a victory for India, since the USPTO had restricted the grant of patent to just three strains of rice, and not to an exclusive claim over the basmati name.

Thus, the government added, the grant of patent does not impinge on India's interest to export basmati to the US.

Singh, however, says: "Just as champagne is a protected term used for sparkling wines made in France, or scotch is a variety of whiskey made in Scotland, India must fight at international forums for legal rights for its basmati.

"Otherwise, it is basmati today. Tomorrow it would be Alphonso mangoes and the day after it could be Kolhapuri chappals, which could suffer similar challenges."

Yet, when it comes to countries other than the US, it is not that India has not won cases on the basis of geographical indication or common law.

Fifteen similar cases have already been won by APEDA, while 40 others are pending in 24 countries.

Swarup says RiceTec had filed applications for registering names such as 'Texmati', 'Kasmati' and 'Jasmati' as trademarks in Greece, while in Britain it had wanted to register 'Texmati' as a trademark.

In both these countries, he said, India was able to get the claims rejected on the ground that such names were deceptively similar to basmati.

The APEDA chairman further clarified that efforts were on to strengthen India's case in other countries by classifying basmati varieties in terms of geographical indication.

The DNA strings of 11 traditional basmati varieties have been identified and codified as per their unique physical properties, which will help the authorities to register them in the geographical indication registry.

Indo-Asian News Service

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