GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION: PATH TO GLOCAL MARKETS VIA GENERIC BRANDING Dr. JYOTIRMOY MAZUMDER, Head of BBA(H), Tarakeswar Degree College, Tarakeswar, Hooghly, West Bengal, India; email : [email protected]; Mobile – 9474041650. Abstract

The success of any consumer product lies upon its value as brand, whether generic or specific. Recent development through Geographical Indication (GI) is a method to procure & promote local products, especially from local artisans or SMEs, to the global/local markets by ensuring quality or features of these products. Both foreign and indigenous products can be GI tagged now in India, which enhance the chances of recognition and decrease competition/imitation of fake products. Brand value or equity is achieved through this though it uplifts the task of maintaining international standards. Increasing demand for applying to GI indicates that the non-IPR segments can be protected through this root and sellers should focus on socio-economic segments to provide generic brand and customized value to grow in a market. Keyword: Geographical Indication, Generic, Brand, Product, Market.

1. INTRODUCTION “Darjeeling”, “Champagne”, “Assam”, “Cognac”, “Banaras”, “Tequila” – these are some well- known names which are associated throughout the world with products of a certain nature and quality. One common feature of all those names is their geographical connotation, or, their function of designating existing places, towns, regions or countries. These examples show that geographical indications can acquire very high reputation and may become commercial assets. A geographical indication (GI) is a name/sign used on certain products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin (e.g. a place, town, region, or country). Though GI generally consist of geographical names “direct indications”, they may also be based on non- geographical names or symbols, if perceived by the public as identifying certain geographical origin which are generally called “indirect geographical indications”. GIs have been defined under Article 22(1) of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement as: "Indications which identify a good as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or a locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin." The GI tag ensures that none other than those registered as authorized users (or at least those residing inside the geographic territory) are allowed to use the popular product name. The concept of GI comes from the concept of “Country of Origin” or a regional or sub regional geographic origin. Consumers use geographic origin image as an extrinsic cue for offerings for which they lack product specific information. Products that have achieved a high degree of geographic origin image include German or Japanese automobiles & consumer electronics, French cosmetics and perfumes, Swiss watches etc. Communal premium pricing idea has helped many food/beverage and other commoditized products such as German beers, French or Italian wines and cheeses, Spanish Sherry, Swiss chocolates, Chinese tea & silk and Holland bulbs. The source of the product enables the consumer to identify the product that best caters to a range of personal expectations about quality and characteristics, which in turn may derive from previous experience, advertising or even the recommendations. This superior quality either resulted from natural geographic advantages, such as climate and geology (e.g., Seville oranges, Kentish hops, Burgundy wine); recipes and food processing techniques, local to a region (e.g., Kyoto bean cakes, Malmesbury mead, Frankfurter Sausages) or indigenous manufacturing skills (e.g., Toledo Steel, Delft Ceramic Ware, Korean Celadon ware). Protection from counterfeiting/forgery is also highly desirable. A number of treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provide for the protection of geographical indications. The World Trade Organization (WTO) panel in European Communities–Geographical Indications affirmed the principle of co-existence of trademarks and GIs that characterizes the European system of protection. Thereby, under the EC regulation, the prior existence of a conflicting trademark does not prevent registration of a GI. In the USA, GI are protected under the US Trade Marks Act as ‘trademarks’, ‘collective marks’, or ‘certification marks’. Particularly on ‘extension’ of acceptable GI products (Article 23), beyond primary products wine/liquor or cheese, one can find developing countries joining hands with developed countries either as demanders or opponents, depending on their respective stakes in GIs. Generic Brand: A generic brand is a type of consumer product that lacks a widely recognized name or logo because it isn't normally advertised. Generic brands are usually less expensive than brand-name products due to their absence in promotion, which can inflate the cost of goods or service. Generic brands are designed to be substitutes for more expensive brand-name. These are especially common in supermarket goods. A variation of a generic brand is a private label brand (also "store brand," "own brand," or "private brand"), in which an item carries the brand of a store. The WIPO is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world". WIPO currently has 192 member states, administers 26 international treaties (by end 2019). As per WIPO Global Brand Database, there are 20156519 active brands & 2703042 number of pending to be brand names present (17749592 brands are already inactive) worldwide (as on 31/01/2020). Country of origin wise, USA has the most among them, 10179390; South Korea is 2nd with 3745850 & France is 3rd with 2988600 such brands. Other countries with one million plus brand names are Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Italy & Spain (EU also). India has a mere 1298 registered brand names as per this data by then. Table 1 – List of GIs in force for selected national/regional authorities by December’18

National_Regional_Authority GI_in_force (numbers) China 7,247 European Union 4,968 Republic of Moldova 4,732 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4,499 Georgia 4,426 Armenia 3,228 Ukraine 3,115 Australia 2,064 Mexico 1,687 Viet Nam 1,130 Costa Rica 1,121 Peru 1,072 Serbia 1,020 Cuba 1,001 Israel 1,000 Canada 835 U.S. 779 Turkey 398 Iran (Islamic Republic of) 385 India 330 Source: WIPO Statistics Database, August 2019.

Data received from the 92 national/regional authorities that shared their 2018 data with WIPO reveals that 65,900 protected GIs are in existence. GIs in force relating to “wines and spirits” accounted for 51.1% of the 2018 total, followed by agricultural products and foodstuffs (29.9%). Handicrafts accounted for 2.7% of the total. China, Hungary, India and Vietnam each had more than 100 GIs for handicrafts in force within their jurisdictions in 2018. Indications relating to services amounted to 34 GIs in 2018, mainly in the USA (17 GIs) and Vietnam (12 GIs). Generic terms cannot be protected as GI. GI can become generic if it has become associated with products to such an extent that it goes to mean the product itself and lost its ability to identify where the goods have originated from. E.g., French fries or Bermuda shorts.

GIs in India: India, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 into force with effect from 15 September 2003. Darjeeling tea became the first GI tagged product in India, in 2004-05. An online platform to sale GI products of India, named Geographical Indications Tagged World Premium Products Pvt Ltd or GiTAGGED, was first launched in 2016, which later also opened a privately owned GI store in Bengaluru’s HSR Layout area in May 2018. In January 2019, India’s first state run exclusive GI Store was opened at Goa International Airport in Dabolim.

Table 2 – List of some famous Indian GI tagged products Sl. No. Name of GI Type State 1 Darjeeling Tea Agricultural West Bengal 2 Assam Orthodox Tea Agricultural Assam 3 Kancheepuram Silk Handicraft Tamil Nadu 4 Nagpur Orange Agricultural Maharashtra 5 Kashmir Pashmina Handicraft Jammu & Kashmir 6 Alphonso Mango Agricultural Maharashtra 7 Lucknow Chikan Craft Handicraft Uttar Pradesh 8 Feni Manufactured Goa 9 Malihabadi Dusseheri Mango Agricultural Uttar Pradesh 10 Bikaneri Bhujia Agricultural Rajasthan 11 Hyderabadi Haleem Foodstuff Telangana 12 Nashik Grapes Agricultural Maharashtra 13 Bomkai Saree & Fabrics Handicraft Odisha 14 Lucknow Zardozi Handicraft Uttar Pradesh 15 Banaras Brocades and Saree Handicraft Uttar Pradesh Source: http://ipindia.nic.in/girindia/

There are 21 items from West Bengal with the GI tag out of total 361 granted in India up to March 2020 (since 2004-05). They are – Darjeeling tea (word & logo), Nakshi Kantha, Banglar Patachitra, Santiniketan leather goods, Laxmanbhog mango, Fazli mango, Himsagar mango, Santipore saree, Baluchari saree, Dhaniakhali saree, Joynagar moa, Gobindobhog rice, Tulaipanji rice, Bardhaman Sitabhog, Bardhaman Mihidana, Banglar Rosogolla, Bankura- Panchmura Terracotta craft, Bengal Dokra, Chau mask, Kushmandi mask, Madurkathi. Other items like Krishnanagar Sarpuria, Krishnanagar Sarbhaja, Kolkatti gold, dry sweet Sandes etc. are yet to get tag or apply. So far, Karnataka has most GIs – 46 whereas Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand have only one GI and Jharkhand has no GI at all (applied). Not only that, from foreign countries (like Peru, France, USA, UK, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Ireland), 15 products like liquor, wine, cheese or silk have also been given Indian GI tags to sell in India, using the Lisbon System or the Madrid System, which enables indigenous GIs to enter any other country. A GI tag is granted by the Geographical Indications Registry on recommendations of the Chennai-based Intellectual Property Appellate Board. Usually it is granted when a geographical location adds a certain quality to a product, GI vouches for its authenticity and is more often granted to a community than an individual or enterprise. The honour is often referred to the poor man’s intellectual property rights. E.g., “Bardhaman Sitabhog” and “Bardhaman Mihidana” – the prefixes are deliberately added to avoid any dispute similar to that of Rosogolla’s place of originality – made a foray into the GI club as the Chennai-based GI Registry published the dessert’s names in its Journal 92, vaulting them to the global arena.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW Among foreign authors, Albayrak & Gunes (2010) found implementations of GIs at brand management of traditional foods in the European Union. Mevhibe & Ozdemir (2012) focused on the role of GI in brand making of Turkish handicrafts. Some others had focus on local products of their origin countries. Gonela (2011) searched for the GI legal perspectives of Andhra Pradesh in his research. Nanda, Barpujari & Srivastava (2013) looked into the overall protection of GIs in India. Chavan (2013) studies similarly about the legal protection of GIs. As she mentioned, GIs work on four functions – origin, quality, investment or advertising & culture protection. She identified the development of GI tagging process and its criticalities for India and abroad. Dhamotharan (2013) put his detailed study about GI based bananas of Tamil Nadu and their marketing based reach to consumers. Naik (2014) looked into the issues of GIs in Karnataka. Paramita (2015) put efforts to identify the lawful aspects of GIs. Farhatul (2015) delved into the desirability of Kashmiri handicrafts’ GI. Krishna (2016) tried to identify the protection of traditional knowledge & GI in Indian legal state. Anson (2016) searched Kerala based GI products’ consumer perceived value, with specifics of origin of GIs or differences between trademarks & GIs. As per him, western studies show that consumers need for uniqueness (CNFU) have a fascinating relation in the consumer behavior of GI products. Sarmah (2017) tried to find out the role of GI in securing the right of indigenous people in Assam. Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks, India publishes reports on GI. Local volume of newspapers like Times of India or The Telegraph also plays as source of data. WIPO website has vital worldwide publications about it, including case studies. Finally, data from ‘ipindia’ website is the best source for current scenario of GI in India.

3. FINDINGS

GIs allow producers to create an attractive product image, possibly even an image of exoticness, quality or prestige, which the consumer associates with the product. The image that is formed has a sales-promotion effect. Thus, ‘a GI can gain a selling-power above that of the underlying goodwill’. Producers can use GIs to shore up the prices of their products only if the advertising and investment function is properly protected. However, for product qualities and characteristics to survive and be appreciated, they need a culture of consumption. This culture of consumption is maintained by providing consumers with accurate information on the geographical origin of products. GIs can be seen as guardians of cultural identity and a defense against homogeneity brought about by globalization. The reputation theory argues that a producer has the incentive to invest in the promotion of his or her products reputation only if the same can be effectively conveyed to the consumer. What is crucial for the goods seeking for GIs protection is to ensure that consumers’ perception of the brand closely approximates real, as opposed to perceived product qualities; thus search cost reduction is maintained as the prime objective of a GI. Three cases of GI enabled products are discussed here briefly for the scenario projection of current markets – i) “Burdwan Gobindobhog Millers’ Association” claims to export 25000 tonnes of gobindobhog rice to overseas markets in an unorganized way annually, earning around Rs. 120 crores by 2017. Some thousand farmers from West Bengal districts like Burdwan, Nadia, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Howrah, Hooghly, Bankura, North & South 24 Parganas produce this rice annually. At least 30 mills exist in Burdwan south Damodor river belt area to procure the rice to markets like south India, Sri Lanka, Middle East, Brazil, Germany, Canada, UK etc. ii) Baba Budangiri, 250 from Bengaluru, where coffee was first grown in India, has gone for GI of its variety of the Arabica brew via Coffee Board with four other varieties – Coorg Arabica, Wayanad Robusta, Chikmagalur Arabic & Araku Valley Arabica. Today, Baba Budangiri Arabica is grown across 15000 hectares around the original hills, where it was first planted. Over the last few centuries, coffee plantations grew beyond Baba Budangiri and the adjoining Chickmagalur and spread to Kodagu and Hassan in Karnataka, and Wayanad, Travancore and Nelliampathy regions of Kerala. It is also grown in the hilly regions of Palani, Shevroy, Nilgiris and Anamalais in Tamil Nadu. iii) The experts point out that GI tags help mostly in marketing a product. India, which accounts for 85% of Basmati produced in the world, had exports of worth Rs. 27600 crore in 2016-17. With GI, others will not be able to export their rice as Basmati. Tequila is a good example. Production of this Mexican alcoholic beverage shot up from 105 million litres in 1995 to 312 million litres in 2008. It’s now down, possible because of a drop in demand related to the global economic slowdown. Kerala ayurvedic massage does not have a GI tag yet. Practitioners of this Kerala massage form can be found all over the world, including in European countries. How can one then consider giving it a GI tag, barring practitioners in other places from calling it ‘Kerala Ayurvedic Massage’? There is a matrix, explaining how GIs can benefit or harm both the producers and customers (Giovannucci, 2009), which is provided below- Table 3 – GIs in Producer & Consumer Context

Source: Anson C J, 2016

4. CONCLUSION

Some basic properties of a GI are likely to benefit the regional economy. First, GI is held in perpetuity with no time limit as long as local knowledge is sustained and the indication is prevented from being generic. This means the marketing costs are needed only to reach out to consumer with the message of further innovations in the product. Second, the right is granted to a collective body of producers and not to an individual producer. Third, unlike patents and copyrights, GIs are not created but only recognized which means that investments are related only to building a reputation of a product already existing. Sourcing and sending original GI products to markets is very essential too. Branding (generic) provides advantages to producers in the following ways- a) Facilitates product differentiation & visibility b) Decreases unwanted competition & increases demand c) Increases price premium or market share d) Generates faster market penetration e) Enables greater trade cooperation f) Supports sustainable livelihood & preservation of traditional knowledge, also increasing tourism. In turn, branding provides value to consumers by reducing search cost, emotional attachment benefits, & enhanced purchase decision for arriving at satisfaction. But in India, still issues of lack of initiatives in building brands and visibility, misuse of GI tags, lack of producer database, low distribution channel with very low producer income, less promotion & market reach of GI, lack of online presence, very less assurance and legal fights by govt at international platforms, low monitoring of quality and compliance, limited production capacity, lack of R&D & technical and design inputs for variety of innovative outputs (keeping at pace with consumer tastes & preferences), less attractive packaging, low funding, health & safety issues in working conditions, non-availability of insurance etc are prevalent. Specific tasks must be taken for branding the GIs in India like – i) Develop the brand name and structure along with visual identity and symbols: Recognition, Differentiation, and Protection ii) Create & register GI logos for GI products with moderate to large potential iii) State sponsored awareness creation for GI Products like customized GI tours iv) Mass media campaigns at regular intervals v) Offline & online presence across sales platforms (both private & govt) vi) Brand building for desired associations and credibility, highlighting heritage and uniqueness, loyalty rewards vii) Festival/Event based brand tie-up promotions viii) Knowledge of profitability for sellers on original products Meanwhile, the central government can support GI in two specific ways: one, to provide funds to the DPIIT for legal research, scientific services and technical experts at minimum cost. Second, it must establish an effective and efficient legal mechanism to deal with the unauthorized production and sale of GI products. The Cell for IPR Promotion and Management provides a good model structure for GI protection. GIs as tool to promote development and sustainability - GI products have significant implications for producers of developing countries. One of them is that they relate to community engagement. The grant of a GI will provide the right owners with the opportunity to get economic benefits and with the right to exclude non entitled users by creating a barrier to entry into a niche market segment. Subsequently, the economic incentives will then produce other incentives to nurture and sustain traditional methods and know-how, which will contribute to inter-generational equity. Other indirect benefits like the creation of employment, local demand for recreational services and other local quality goods, the retention of the population in rural areas and the possibility to generate tourism also benefits the owners of a GI and the community as a whole. These products serve both global & local (glocal) markets at the capacity of producer & choice of customers, depending on their traditional or adaptive culture. Exporting inter-state or to international markets – both can open avenues for potential market places. Current limitations of GIs – Apart from early discussed areas of concerns, the importance of marketing in achieving market penetration was highlighted in a study (Albisu, 2003) on the link between origin labeled products (OLPs) and local production systems : ‘Many firms belonging to an OLP supply chain tend to be more product oriented than market oriented. Pride of the product and loyalty to the traditional production technique may generate highly valuable product qualities but it is definitely not a guarantee for a sound and successful sale strategy.’* Similarly, a study by Rangnekar (2004) states that once a GI is registered, it becomes relatively easier to seek protection in other countries, particularly the member countries of WTO. The definition of ‘producer’ does not distinguish between a real producer, retailer or dealer. As a result of this discrepancy, the benefits of the protection may not percolate down to the real producer. Various economically powerful intermediaries may still continue their control over markets and the real producers may still be dependent on these intermediaries for market access like cases of Basmati/potato yields in Indian states. Firms with superior bargaining positions (located on the upper stream of the supply chain) may end up appropriating a disproportionate share of the economic value generated from securing protection.** * Luis Miguel Albisu, work programmes 2, (Link between origin labelled products and local production systems, supply chain analysis) - Final Report, July 2003 as reported in Rangnekar (2004). **Rangnekar, D., ‘The International Protection of Geographical Indications: The Asian Experience’, UNCTAD/ICTSD, Regional Dialogue on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Sustainable Development, Hong Kong, SAR, Republic of China, November 8-10, 2004.

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