The Hindu : Business : India to join Madrid trade mark system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 09, 2007
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Business

Business

India to join Madrid trade mark system

Special Correspondent

Cabinet decision will help protection of Indian marks abroad

— Photo: V. Sudershan

MAKING A MARK: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram addressing the media after the Cabinet meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved India's accession to the Madrid Protocol on International Registration of Marks. As a consequence, a Bill will be introduced in Parliament to amend the Trade Marks Act, 1999.

Announcing this here after the Cabinet meeting, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said accession to the Protocol would provide better and extensive protection abroad for Indian marks owners.

Accession to the protocol administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) will facilitate speedy registration of the Indian mark in different markets worldwide, promote business confidence in the country's Intellectual Property Rights system globally, and help transfer of technology through trade marks licensing and franchising.

Varsity status for NID

Also, the Cabinet approved the National Design Policy that seeks to ensure global positioning and branding of Indian designs, and make `Designed in India' a by-word for quality and utility in conjunction with `Made in India' and `Served from India' schemes of the Export Import Policy.As part of the policy, the National Institute of Design (NID) will be upgraded and efforts will be made to give it the `deemed to be university' status so that it can award degrees and not just diplomas as is the case presently.

The Cabinet also approved a package for the revival of MECON Limited involving a cash assistance of Rs. 93 crore, continuance of 50 per cent interest subsidy (not exceeding Rs. 6.50 crore annually) on voluntary retirement scheme loans to be phased out by 2013-14, and conversion of a loan from the Government and interest on outstanding loan into equity. The retirement age of MECON employees has been enhanced from 58 to 60.

A proposal of the Shipping Ministry to pay productivity-linked reward (PLR) to port and dock employees has been approved with retrospective effect from 2002-03. For now, the clearance is till 2009-10 when it will come up for review. Other decisions of the Cabinet included the signing of an Audio-Visual Co-production Agreement between India and Germany.

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