GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS
the inadequacies if any of Chapter XXXIII of the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003. It was also decided to draſt the necessary legislation to give better protection to GIs in Sri Lanka and to help Sri Lankan exporters to register and protect the products of Sri Lanka in countries abroad.
GIs in Sri Lanka can be protected as certification marks or collective marks. Injunctive relief and other reliefs including the provisions of Chapter XXXV are available to protect them. Protection of GIs is necessary so that unauthorised people can be excluded from misusing GIs and thereby serves to protect consumers from deception, adds to the economic prosperity of the producer of such goods and also helps promote goods bearing Sri Lankan GIs in the export market.
Te protection of GIs in the country of origin is necessary as otherwise there would be no obligation under the TRIPS Agreement for other countries to extend reciprocal protection. Although in Sri Lanka GIs are protected under Chapter XXXIII, exporters find it difficult to adequately protect products of Sri Lankan origin in foreign countries in the absence of a system of registration. Tis is because when marks are protected as certification marks or collective marks it becomes necessary for foreign countries to establish that the marks so registered as certification marks or collective marks in fact relate to GIs.
It is true that certain countries, such as the US, do not have a separate system to protect GIs, and GIs are simply protected inter alia by certification and collective marks. However, in jurisdictions such
J.M. Swaminathan, LLB (Ceylon), LLM Phil (Colombo), attorney at law, is a member of the Company Law Advisory Commission, a member of the IP Law Advisory Commission and the Council of Legal Education. He is a faculty member of the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo and a member of the legal cluster of the National Economic Commission. He is a member of the Law Commission of Sri Lanka and the Council of
as India and Singapore, there are separate statutes apart from those relating to the registration and protection of trademarks to protect GIs. From the discussions that took place it appears that several difficulties faced by Sri Lankan exporters in respect of Sri Lankan products would be greatly lessened if there were a system of registration of GIs in Sri Lanka.
Accordingly, active consideration is being given to the formulation of interim relief to protect the GIs of Sri Lankan exporters more effectively and also to decide whether a new Geographical Indication Act should be enacted in the country.
J.M. Swaminathan is the precedent partner of Messrs. Julius & Creasy. He can be contacted at:
jacey@sltnet.llc
Lawyers Education, Sri Lanka. He is a visiting lecturer and an examiner at the Faculty of Law University of Colombo. He is also a faculty member of the LLM Wales Course conducted by the Sri Lanka Law College and a course director, post attorneys diploma programme on IP law, conducted by the Sri Lanka Law College. He has been in practice for more than 49 years and is a director of several listed
and unlisted companies.
www.worldipreview.com
World Intellectual Property Review Annual 2014
75
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