Rice wars: the dispute over Basmati GI
A geographical indication (GI) as a special IP right is granted to protect the unique qualities of a product that are specific to its geographical origin. Considering the commercial role and competitive advantage of GI tags, there are often disputes between two geographies, be it states or countries, and India and Pakistan are no exception. In the past, political tensions between India and Pakistan have spilled over in trade disputes, including an IP dispute on the Basmati GI tag.
Basmati, the long grain aromatic rice, is produced in India and Pakistan. After failing to jointly register a GI tag for Basmati rice, India and Pakistan decided to make registrations individually within the GI laws of their own countries before broaching the international market. In November 2008, India’s Agricultural and Processed Food Product Export Development Authority (APEDA) filed an application before India’s GI registry, claiming exclusivity of the GI tag for Basmati rice produced in seven states, namely Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
A common heritage
APEDA’s application was published in May 2010, and was opposed by Pakistan’s Basmati Growers Association (BGA) in September. BGA in its claim relied upon a decision made by the Registrar of Trademarks in Pakistan in May 2008, stating that Basmati is a rice grown in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India and adjacent part of Pakistan below the foothills of Himalayas; hence Basmati is a common heritage of both India and Pakistan.
However, in 2013, after hearing both the parties, the registry treated the opposition filed by BGA as abandoned owing to its failure to file the evidence supporting its opposition within the prescribed time and format under the Geographical Indication Act, 1999 of India. BGA had appealed to India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board challenging the order of the registry, which was rejected on the grounds that BGA does not have any jurisdiction over Basmati-growing areas in India and should file their case before the High Court of Sindh at Karachi, paving the way for APEDA to obtain the GI registration for Basmati in India in 2016.
To secure a GI tag for basmati, India had made an application in the EU’s official GI registry in July 2018 under the category of Protected GIs, claiming GI on Basmati because it originated from India. This caused uproar among the producers of Basmati rice from Pakistan, fearing not just the loss of GI tag, but also a loss in the international export value for the product.
