The government will set up a National Intellectual Property Institute to create intellectual property and remove weakness in marketing.
The concerned ministry has already prepared a draft act likely to be finalized after final approval from the cabinet.
According to the Ministry of Industry and the Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPDT), although there are innovations in the country, it is not useful in the end for lack of intellectual property.
The Intellectual Property Institute will assist in the implementation and planned innovation of these. Apart from that, meritorious people in various fields of work are lagging behind due to lack of skill development. Emphasis will be placed on developing their skills.
Concerned people said that the purpose of this institute is to train the government and non-government officials and employees involved in intellectual property through training. They hope that this will create new intellectual resources in the country as well as preserve the country's resources properly.
They said that if the soil, water, climate and culture of a country play a unique role in the production of a particular product, that product is recognized as a Geographical Location (GO) product of that country.
In that case the product also has to be able to play an important role in the country's economy. To get geographical recognition of such products, one has to first register with the Patent, Design and Trademarks Office under the Ministry of Industry. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) then gave final approval to the product.
Not only does it have to be recognized, it has to run a lot of publicity to make the product known in the world market as its own product.
But due to lack of proper knowledge of marketing in this regard, Bangladesh has not carried out any campaign in that sense so far. Again, although there are many traditional products, no initiative has been taken to register them.
As a result, even after getting registered first, due to lack of knowledge, papers, and evidence, the country's renowned Jamdani Sari is now recognised as an Indian GI product by the world.
However, in this regard creating skilled manpower by establishing National Intellectual Property Institute will help to establish many products as Bangladesh's own brand.
The need to build skilled manpower at public-private level to establish such products as Bangladesh's own brand has been felt for a long time. The National Intellectual Property Institute is being set up as an implementation of this.
Industry Secretary, KM Ali Azam told the media, "The draft of the National Intellectual Property Institute Act has been finalized. It will be sent to the cabinet for approval in the next couple of weeks. There is no such institution in the country at present. But we are now going to be transformed into a developing country. So our research, innovation, intellectual property and other related work are being given importance. Therefore, initiatives have been taken to build such institutions."
Presently, there are three GI certified products in the country. They are Jamdani sari, Hilsa fish and Khirsapat mango. Now, many products including Muslin, Fazli mango, Langra mango, Kataribhog rice, Kalijira rice and honey from the Sundarbans are waiting for GI certification.