Textile and Handicraft Industries often receive complaints regarding the copying of products by other manufacturers and exporters. To overcome this issue, the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) has launched an Online Design Register Service to help its members protect their designs.
R.K. Passi, Chairman, Rakesh Kumar, DG, EPCH and member exporters launched this platform.
Speaking about the service, R.K. Passi said “Design Register will prove to be an important tool for the exporters to protect their designs from being copied by others and also protect the rights of the creator of the design or product.”
Rakesh Kumar claimed that EPCH conceptualised creating of Design Register which will be maintained by EPCH to create awareness amongst its member exporters and facilitate them to register their design, product, material, the articles created by them under the Design Register at EPCH that would work as a code of conduct of the handicrafts exporters, for the handicrafts exporters and by the handicrafts exporters.
Seven-member exporters from all across the country simultaneously registered their designs on the Design Register platform and tested the efficacy.
The expert believes that this initiative will also save the design creator from spending a lot of money and time in patenting, registering their products with the appropriate authorities.
EPCH is also organising webinars on various topics so that the companies can get direction for further business. It also organised webinar on ‘Intellectual Property Rights and How to Protect Your Designs’.
Ankit Sahni of Ajay Sahni & Associates, a legal expert, explained about legal procedures and also the relevance of design protection in the handicrafts sector.
Expert panellists from handicrafts sector including Dileep Baid of Dileep Trading Corporation; Ruma Malik, buying representative from Something Else and founder member of Buying Agents Association; Rajan Agarwal of Rajan Overseas and Nupur Batra of Accessories by Nupur also gave insight input during the webinar.
