Pinching where it really hurt

The company even announced its intentions to offer to license its patented variety of long, aromatic rice, in the May 1997 issue of Rice World Journal, which is circulated to all rice producing nations across the world. However, New Delhi8217;s answer to such developments 8212; the Basmati Protection and Development Fund BPDF was set upsome months ago.

8220;The Indian government should have been a lot more careful to avoid something like this8230; after all, the US cannot grant patent for a rice that is traditionally grown in India and Pakistan. This is gross violation of the Geographical Indication Clause of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights TRIPS,8221; remarked patent expert Suman Sahai.

Last year, an application for a few million dollars for creating international awareness about basmati, was sent by the BPDF to the Brand Equity Fund of India that was set up by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. But the same was rejected and the BPFD told to raise its own resources by charging a cess of Rs 20 per tonne exported that was raised later to Rs 50 for such purposes.

Nevertheless, BPDF and APEDA jointly planned last year and called for an agency pitch that drew the best of the nation, ranging from Hindustan Thompson Associates HTA, Ammirati Puris Lintas, McCann Erickson, Rediffusion Dentsu Young and Rubicam and RK Swamy BBDO. Amonth later, Rediffusion was recruited. And the result? The agency 8211; till date 8211; doesn8217;t have a breif to work on.

8220;The disaster could have been averted if measures were taken well in advance . Look at Scotland and the way it protects its Scotch whisky. Once the Japanese planned their own variety of scotch for the international market but were forced almost immediately to withdraw the same from the shelves. So particular was Scotland about its liquor that it said in its worldwide publicity campaign that the nation8217;s air and water had something unique that helped Scotch become such a classy drink. Again, take the example of champagne from France. So strong is the worldwide pressure from Paris that even major brewers in the United States call their variety of champagne sparkling wine. Instances of such geographic appellation like Columbian coffee from only Columbia and Havana cigars only from Cuba are galore. But we continue to suffer in India,8221; remarked an aggrieved exporter.

8220;Such branding of yourproduct is extremely important,8221; says Pepsi spokesperson Deepak Jolly, whose company exports Basmati in 1,2 and 5 kilo consumer packs under the brandname Season Harvest to departmental stores in Europe and Middle East. The company, which has a annual Rs 40 crore turnover from the exports, also sells another cheap variety of rice under the brandname Lehar. 8220;And we meticulously print the words Indian Basmati on the cover of Seasons Harvest so as to avoid confusion.8221; said Jolly, adding the recent Rice Tec patent was unlikely to hit Pepsi8217;s exports.

8220;We are confident of getting the patent back and are working towards that. The situation is really fluid now. It needs to be seen what decisions the government formulate but there is no way the American company can manage to get away with the patent,8221; AIREA secretary general Anil Adlakha said. Three law firms hired by the government, Sagar amp; Suri Associates in India, Linklaters, and Patten and Bogs in London are reportedly working out the modalities offiling the complaint with the US government as well as the World Trade Organisation. Moves have also been initiated by Naresh Chandra, the Indian ambassador to the United States, who has sent a team to deliberate with Rice Tec on the issue. Rice Tec, which reportedly expressed surprise over New Delhi8217;s decision to appeal to a United States patent ruling, said it will argue on the issue of basmati as a class of rice and not a brand name.

Aggrieved experts are also linking the incident to a similar development that jolted the Indian tea industry when New Delhi discovered that Sri Lankan and Kenyan planters along with a large number of blenders were selling their brand of beverage as Darjeeling Tea. 8220;It still continues in the international market. Nothing has been done about it despite repeated complaints from the Consultative Committee of Plantation association CCPA. The Tea Board has got a special logo designed to label tea from Darjeeling but that also simply does not work. Today, Darjeeling tea fromthe real Darjeeling fights for shelve space with Darjeeling tea from the plantations in Sri Lanka,8221; said noted tea exporter Sanjay Kapoor.

And though New Delhi recently won a patent in the much-publicised turmeric patent case in Greece, Kapoor said its continued neglect of serious issues revolving around the beverage India produced a record 810 million kilos last year could prove disastrous one days.

8220;There is absolutely no publicity that Darjeeling is our classiest tea. Sometime back Tea Board produced some films and got aired in some channels in Japan. But beyond that nothing happened. For purely financial reasons, the Board expressed its helplessness in airing such films on prime channels across the United States and Europe and refused to release print ads in mainline publications in these continents. Leave alone the publicity, there is virtually no control on quality of tea being exported from India 8211; an issue which has often being raised at international levels. As a result, not many importers knowthe difference between the real, classy Darjeeling tea and fakes from Sri Lanka and Kenya,8221; remarked veteran tea expert Praful Gorida, adding: 8220;A large number of shops across the Europe are selling Darjeeling tea as Lanka Darjeeling or Hamburg Darjeeling, which sounds so ridiculous.8221;

What does the Rice Tea patent mean for India? The patent, granted more than five month ago, allows Rice Tec to sell rice under the brand name Basmati. Rice Tec, which had been earlier selling rice under brand names like Kasmati and Taxmati, will now be able to not only call its aromatic rice Basmati within the United States but also label all its rice exports.

This means India is likely to suffer heavily in the 45,000-tonne US market, which forms 10 per cent of the total basmati exports, but also its premium position in vital markets like the European Union the United Kingdom and West Aisa. Exports of basmati are less than half a million tons while that of non-basmati rice is four times that figure. And unlike the lattercategory, whose exports have shot up from 260,000 tonnes in 1992-93 to touch a high of 1.5 million tonnes in 1995-96, before slipping to 1.98 million tonnes in 1997, basmati has grown by jsut around 150,000 tonnes. And the export of 488,700 tonnes in 1996-97 fetched the exchequer a huge Rs 1,196 crore.

Souces further said that while Islamabad has been routinely monitoring movement sin the international rice market. New Delhi has been rank slow in its follow-up approach-especially after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the then Commerce Secretary Tejinder Khanna had worked overtime to formulate a strategy to help Indian exporters counter tensions in the international market and face counterparts from the United States, who were dominating the international bazaar in mid-90s with a WTO regulation that specified the higher the price of a commodity, the lower would be the duty.