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Give high priority to IPR issues: Industry
January 21, 2003 16:25 IST
Expressing concern over the growing menace of counterfeiting, various sectors of the industry demanded high priority to issues of Intellectual Property Rights and speedy trials and better conviction rate for the related offences.
"Due to huge advancement in technology counterfeiting of FMCG goods, processed food and software, copyright goods have become a highly lucrative business but IPR is a low priority issue for the government machinery," Ajit Yadav, executive director (legal), Pepsico India Holdings, said at a conference on 'Combating Counterfeiting: Strategy and Practice' co-organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition in New Delhi.
Lamenting the lack of understanding of Intellectual Property Rights issues by the courts as well as law enforcing authorities, Yadav said everyone - companies, government and the consumers - stand to lose because of counterfeiting.
Personal care industry alone loses over Rs 2500 crores (Rs 25 billion) annually due to counterfeiting, but the counterfeiters are not deterred by small penalties and two-three days of arrest as the monetary returns are huge, Ashok Gupta, GM Hindustan Lever Ltd said citing the example of one of HLL's products, which has 126 counterfeited variants in the market.
Apart from the revenue losses to the companies and the government, the consumers too are vulnerable to health hazards because of spurious products, Gupta said adding there was a need to have stricter law enforcement and the financial backbone of the counterfeiters should be broken by a concerted effort of the government, industry and the consumers.
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