What are the initiatives taken by Tea Board of India to ensure geographical indications (GI) protection to 'Darjeeling Tea'? What measures would you suggest to pave way for enhanced protection of Intellectual Property Ri

The Tea Board of India took the following initiatives to ensure Geographical Indication (GI) Protection to 'Darjeeling Tea': The compulsory system of certifying the authenticity of exported Darjeeling tea. With this it has made it compulsory for all the dealers in Darjeeling tea to enter into a license agreement with the Tea Board of India. The Tea Board registered the 'Darjeeling logo' and also the word 'Darjeeling' as Certification Trade Mark (CTMs) under the (Indian) Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1958 (now the 'Trade Marks Act, 1999'). The Tea Board of India has also applied for the registration of the words 'Darjeeling' and 'Darjeeling logo' under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. In order to protect 'Darjeeling' and 'Darjeeling logo' as a GI, the Tea Board of India registered the marks in various countries. The Tea Board hired the services of a worldwide agency COMPUMARK, to check and prevent the misuse of 'Darjeeling' and Darjeeling logo. For example a company called 'Bulgari' from Switzerland agreed to withdraw its application to use the tag 'Darjeeling Tea fragrance for men'. Several such cases were settled through negotiations. The Tea Board has sought the help of all overseas buyers, sellers and Tea Council and Associations to insist on Certificates of Origin to accompany all export consignments of Darjeeling tea. To protect against the violations of its Intellectual Property Rights, an organization should ensure the protection of its trade secrets in a foreign country also. Every company has to take certain important and crucial measures to ensure protection to its trade secrets. It may be prudent for the companies to conduct an intellectual property audit to identify the protectable business information. This will help the companies to assess the value of the information useful for their business. The intellectual property audit is the starting point for the development of a trade secrets protection programme. Once the audit is complete, the next step is to determine appropriate level of security necessary to protect different types of trade secrets. If a trade secret is well protected, there is no term of protection. Trade secret protection can, in principle, extend indefinitely and in this respect offers an advantage over patent protection, which lasts only for a specified period. The Tea Board of India feels that a partnership with the buyers in the major consuming countries such as Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom would be the only long term solution to the problem of possible passing off.' However, it strongly opposes any attempt at individual registration in the case of private labels or its misuse in specific overseas jurisdictions. Governments of several countries working together have a prominent role to play in resolving disputes. Recently, India and the United States have led the way in this regard by establishing "an annual high-level Intellectual Property (IP) Working Group with appropriate decision making and technical level meetings as a part of the trade policy forum." Similarly, India could look at treaties like the Hague Treaty on Industrial Designs to strengthen its IPR regime. In the context of protection of any misuse or wrongful use of 'Darjeeling Tea' or any deceptively similar trade name or mark which is applied to a product not belonging to that region which holds a right over it under the GI Act, 1999, it is necessary that a concerted effort be made by all the nations as also the concerned International Organizations, especially the TRIPS, to ensure that there is no violation committed in their respective territory of the rights of others.