Offences & Penalties :

Chapter VIII of the Act details certain acts as offences punishable by imprisonment or with fine or with both. The legislature has taken a strong view of infringement, piracy, falsification, misrepresentation and has now made them penal offences. The chapter apart from listing penalties for the above-mentioned offences also details the penalty and procedure of prosecution.

The following are the acts deemed as offences:

In the context of offences, what constitutes the meaning of “applying geographical indication has been dealt with in Section 37 and the expression geographical indication has been defined in Section 2 (1) (e).

Section 38 list two kinds of offences namely:-

(a) falsifying a GI and

(b) falsely applying a GI.

• The penalty for falsification of GIs and the circumstances in which a person applies false GI are enumerated in Section 39.

• Selling goods to which false GI is applied as outlined in Section 40.

• Enhanced Penalty for subsequent convictions for the offences of falsifying, falsification of GIs or selling goods with false GIs.

• Falsely representing a GI as registered as listed in Section 42. Misrepresenting the GI as Registered, which has not been actually registered is an Offence.

• Improperly describing a place of business as connected with the GIs Registry as listed in Section 43.

• Falsification of entries in the Register as listed in Section 44.

• No offence in certain cases as provided under Section 45.

• Exemption of certain persons employed in ordinary course of business as provided under Section 46.

• Procedure where invalidity of registration is pleaded by the accused as provided in Section 18