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हिन्दी — Read in HindiIntellectual property and Geographical Indications
Intellectual property in the news: patents and their disputes, copyright and new technology, trademarks, and the products that win Geographical Indication tags. Prelims has asked which products hold Geographical Indication tags and why India enacted the Geographical Indications Act.
Foundation note: Intellectual property: the rights, the Acts and India's flexibilities
Showing 2 of 3 articles, those that changed from 1 July to 30 September 2026.Show all
Geographical Indications
Copy link to Geographical IndicationsPrelims and Mains
A Geographical Indication (GI) is a tag registered to a region rather than to a firm, so a producers' body or a market committee holds it rather than any one grower.
- That makes the tag collective property, and whoever is written into the register decides who may lawfully sell under it.
- An application may be opposed within three months of its advertisement under the Act.
- The Intellectual Property Appellate Board was abolished in 2021, so GI disputes now go to slow civil courts.
What changed
11 Aug 2026New
- India has 724 registered GIs and only 42 per cent of them have any authorised user at all.
- In early 2026 the tags for Unjha jeera and saunf went to a market committee in Gujarat.
- About 40 million kg of counterfeit Darjeeling tea is sold worldwide, roughly ten times actual production.
Mains: the regime protects the place but not the producer; the reforms proposed are State enforcement cells, online monitoring and producer collectives.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2018: why India enacted the Geographical Indications Act, 1999
- Prelims 2015: which products hold Geographical Indication status
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
Copy link to Traditional Knowledge Digital LibraryPrelims and Mains
The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library was set up in 2001 by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research with the Ministry of AYUSH.
- It holds over 5.2 lakh formulations from Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Yoga, translated so that foreign patent examiners can read them.
- It protects defensively, by documenting prior art so that patents are refused.
What changed
10 Jul 2026BriefIP Australia gained access, the eighteenth patent office to do so. PIB, 10 Jul 2026: India and Australia Sign Agreement on Access to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (CSIR-TKDL) to Strengthen Protection of Traditional Knowledge (opens in a new tab)
Also filed elsewhere
- Copyright in a machine generated work · on AI governance, safety and ethics
Copyright in a machine generated work turns on authorship: a copyright needs an author, and an author in Indian law is a person.