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Bangladesh Regulation
Trade Marks play a key role in consumer economy. It is one of the main
themes behind Intellectual Property. It enables the consumers to
identify goods which gives the consumer the ability to accept or reject
any product. Trade Mark actually provides the information about the
standard, quality and popularity of a certain Product. Obviously
some people try to trade upon on the goodwill of popular Trade Marks
which make the Trade Mark owners to protect its Trade Mark in different
markets of his product. Different laws define the legal rights of the
owners of and the consumers. Though unregistered trade marks are
protected under the principles of common law in many countries the same
does not necessarily prevail in Bangladesh.
A trade mark is a identity mark capable of identifying that very
products from any other. Mark may be devices, brands, headings, labels,
tickets, names, signatures, words, letters, numerals, shape of goods,
packaging or combination of colors or any combination of any of these.
The Laws
At present the Trade Mark Law in force is 1940. The law is quite old and
it was being felt from long ago that it requires changes. Finally, a new
law has been passed in the Parliament and is going to be in force soon.
Up to now there are is no provisions for service marks in
Bangladesh Trade Mark Law.
Conventions
Bangladesh is a party to The General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade 1994
(GATT), which includes the Chapter entitled “ Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights” (TRIPS) and, as such, makes her a Member
of the World Trade Organization (WTO) family.
Bangladesh is also a member to the Paris Convention. However, Paris
Convention is not strictly followed by the Bangladesh Administration
since, the same has not been ratified in the Parliament. As such, Paris
Convention priority is not available in Bangladesh.
Administration
The Government of Bangladesh maintains offices of the Trade Mark
Registry, in Dhaka and Chittagong, and the Patent Office in Dhaka.
Recently both the offices have been merged under the same Directorate.
All the courts of District Judge in each district and the Magistrates do
take cases for judicial enforcement of various existing Intellectual
Property laws of Bangladesh. The Supreme Court and the several courts of
the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh hear the
Intellectual Property appeal cases.
Eligibility for Registration
A Trade mark should contain one or more invented words and must be
"distinctive". A word having a direct reference to the character or
quality of goods or containing a geographical name or surname or the
name of a sect, caste or tribe in Bangladesh is not registrable.
According to Paris Convention any Trade Mark registered any union
country is to be treated as registered in the union i.e. in any other
union country. However, Paris Convention is not strictly followed by the
Bangladesh Administration since, the same has not been ratified in the
Parliament. The owners of Intellectual Properties are in general aware
of the Geographical Locations of Infringement & Imitation of
Intellectual Properties – such are those countries which are not
developed but have many customers. Bangladesh is one of such countries
where there are about 150 million customers using various foreign
branded products from baby foods and various edible items to electronic
goods, various machineries, medicines and chemicals, fabrics,
construction and industrial materials, perfumes, and cosmetics and many
more things, manufactured and marketed by the owners holding the genuine
Intellectual Property rights. But at the same time with the help of the
said modern facilities (e.g. easy availability of good printing systems,
photographic accessories, computer technologies, various chemicals, and
customized spare parts) the simple customers are randomly cheated and
defrauded by the infringed and imitated products being deprived of the
benefits of the required standards and quality.
In a more elaborated view, many Bangladeshi parties get Trade Marks,
that are popular in different country, registered in their name when the
product is not in Bangladesh Market. They trade upon the Trade Marks
goodwill. Eventually when the owner of the mark enters Bangladesh
Market, sometimes, the infringer is granted right for use the mark
for its using the mark since long. Also there is another difficulty in
coping infringement. Bangladesh Trade Mark Registry is back-logged by a
huge number of files. Sometimes infringers files fresh application and
get it registered by way of disbursements even before the original
application lying pending filed long ago.
Renewal
The initial Trade Mark Registration is valid for seven years, which may
be subsequently renewed for fifteen years
Classification System
Bangladesh follows International Classification System (Niece Agreement)
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