Protection of Fruits through Trademarks: Export Growth in India

Abstract

Trademarks are increasingly used to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) on fruits such as Avacados by Dole Company of USA globally. For, trademarks have very long life than plant variety protection with just 25-30 years life. India’s fruits export is rising rapidly with mangoes (Alphanso), Apples (Shimla), Banana (G9 i.e. Grand Naine), amongst others. India has started exporting special fruit varieties such as “Nendran” from Kerala to Gulf using special packaging technique. India can benefit by promoting trade mark for uniform colour, size, shape &taste, aroma fruits by agri-enterprises for rapid growth in the fruits export. Similar effort is needed for other fruit species & varieties e.g. Guava (Alahabadi), Pineapple, Black Grapes (Medak), Green Gapes (Nasik) Sapota (Gholvad, Palghar), etc. this will help to improve farmers’ income & India’s foreign investments & exchange.