ISLAMABAD, May 5: Pakistan has sought technical assistance from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to enable it to protect its geographical indicators (GIs) from unfair commercial use by any third party.

The WIPO registers GIs — the products having high quality and reputation unique to certain geographical areas or localities in certain areas like Basmati to Pakistan and Champaign to France — for patent rights.

The demand was made by the Secretary, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Ismael Qureshi, in a meeting with deputy director general of the WIPO, Geoffrey Yu and director general of the Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan (IPOP), Yasin Tahir here on Thursday.

Mr Qureshi said the WIPO and Minfal would have to explore further areas of cooperation and technical assistance. He said intellectual property rights were very vital for the country’s agriculture sector since a large number of Pakistan’s GIs belonged to this sector. The registration of Pakistani products for patent rights was essential and for this the WIPO had an important role to play, he added.

Both the parties agreed that the WIPO would provide technical assistance to the government institutions and would join hands in capacity-building of producers and growers of the GIs products.

The Minfal secretary also appreciated the work of the WIPO’s intergovernmental committee on intellectual property, genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore. He hoped that these steps would be instrumental in guiding Pakistan in developing a system of preservation and protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources.

Mr Yu assured that the WIPO would respond positively to the Pakistani requests for technical assistance and legislative advice and would send an expert mission to strengthen the ongoing initiatives at various levels in the government.

He said despite the lack of necessary resources, Pakistan had made a very good start. “As Pakistan is a human resource rich country, there is a great scope in capacity-building of various government departments.”

He said the WIPO could offer its expertise in drafting of the national legislative framework. He said Pakistan needed legislation about various IPO related areas and should also join international treaties in this regard.

The World Trade Organisation agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) provides for the protection of geographical indications (GIs). The GIs, to be protected under the provisions of the agreement, are defined as indications that identify a good as originating in the territory of a member or a region or a locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin (e.g. Sindhi Ajrak, or Peshawari Chapli Kabab).

A number of countries want to negotiate extending to other products the higher level of protection currently given to wines and spirits. This issue is under debate at the WTO.