The number of applications to establish industrial Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Bangladesh increased marginally last year, while Hilsha and Jamdani came lately for GI status.
The country's global ranking in filing for patent and industrial design improved in the past year (2017), according to the latest report of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
However, trademarks declined during the period under review.
The report, released in the first week of this month, showed that Bangladesh ranked 86th among 119 countries in the filing of patent applications in 2016 while its position was 92nd in the previous year.
Patent is generally known as 'a set of exclusive rights granted by law to applicants for inventions that are new, non-obvious and commercially applicable'.
In 2016, global applications for patent increased by 8.3 per cent to 3.12 million. China, as in the previous year, topped the table with 1.33 million applications and 21.5 per cent growth. China alone shared 42.80 per cent of the total global patent applications.
The United States (US) and Japan logged second and third position in the league with 0.60 million and 0.31 million new filings.
Bangladesh's ranking in the filing of application for fresh trademarks last year declined to 59th among 125 countries from 54th among 108 nations in 2015.
The Department of Patents, Designs & Trademarks (DPDT), country's IP office, received 12,405 applications for trademarks of which 8,570 were filed by residents or locals.
In 2015, the total applications for trademarks in Bangladesh were 12,809.
According to WIPO definition, 'a trademark is a distinctive sign that identifies certain goods or services as those produced or provided by a specific person or enterprise'. These can be registered for both goods and services.
Global applications for trademarks jumped to 9.76 million in the past year, registering 13.5 per cent growth over the previous year.
Again, China became lead country in filing trademark applications numbering 3.69 million, followed by the US (0.51 million) and the European Union (0.45 million).
In the segment of filing applications for industrial design, Bangladesh stood 37th among 142 countries, according to the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2017.
The country received 1,454 new applications last year for the industrial design of which 1,357 originated from local or resident sources.
The global filing of design applications stood at 1.24 million in 2016 with an 8.3 per cent growth. And the Chinese IP office received the highest number of applications at 0.65 million, followed by the EU (0.10million) and South Korea (69,120).
Generally, the holder of a registered industrial design has sole right against unauthorised copying or imitation of the design by third parties.
In this year's report, WIPO for the first time includes the statistics of Geographical Indications (GI) filing. It showed that Bangladesh registered on GI last year as Sui generis which was for Jamdani Sari. In the current year, the country registered GI for Hilsha fish.
The country has yet to be a signatory to three other international treaties on patent, trademarks and industrial design in order to file any international application across the member-countries of the treaties.
The treaties are: Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Madrid Agreement on Trade Marks (Madrid system) and the Hague Agreement on Industrial Designs (Hague system).
