Trademark dispute resolution time extended

The Cabinet has endorsed an amendment to the trademark law that proposes increasing the time for dispute resolution in such cases from 120 working days to 360 days.

A meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday gave its final approval to the 'Trademark (Amendment) Act 2014'.

"The existing law gives 120 working days for dispute resolution in trademark-related litigations. But the reality is, cases can not be completed in this time frame,” Cabinet Secretary Md Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters later.

“This thing has to go through seven different steps and that needs more than 300 working days," he added.

A trademark law was made in 1940 while the regulations for it were formulated in 1963 and a new law was made in 2009, said Bhuiyan.

"The new law is made by amending the 2009 act. The industries ministry proposed it."

Apart from the time for dispute resolution, the amendment also addresses some linguistic ambiguity, according to the Cabinet Secretary.

The quarterly report (July-Sept) on implementing the decisions by the Cabinet was also presented at Monday's meeting, said Bhuiyan.

"The rate of implementation is good. About 60 percent of the decisions taken by the Cabinet in the three months have been implemented."