Authored By: Jagashri Kumaran
School of Law , Vel Tech University
Abstract:
India’s Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 was conceived as a legislative shield for traditional craftsmanship and regional products. However, its architecture reveals critical deficiencies when confronted with the sophisticated misappropriation strategies employed by global luxury brands. This article examines the structural inadequacy of the existing GI framework in protecting indigenous textile designs and traditional motifs including Banarasi brocade, Kanchipuram silk, Phulkari embroidery, and Pochampally ikat from commercial expropriation by multinational fashion houses. Employing doctrinal legal analysis supplemented by comparative jurisprudential inquiry, this article argues that India’s current sui generis GI statute fails to extend protection to the design-element dimension of traditional textiles. It concludes by proposing a reformed sui generis framework incorporating design-specific registers, benefit-sharing obligations and dynamic enforcement mechanisms calibrated to the economics of global luxury fashion.
Introduction:
When the French luxury house Dior introduced its 2021 cruise collection, critics pointed out clear similarities to traditional Indian mirror-work embroidery from Kutch, Gujarat. When Valentino included patterns almost identical to the weave geometry of Pochampally ikat in a runway collection, the weavers of Telangana received no compensation. These situations are not isolated issues; they reflect a broader and legally unchallenged problem: the ongoing misappropriation of India’s indigenous textile heritage by the global luxury fashion industry.[1]
India has one of the largest reservoirs of traditional textile knowledge in the world. This living intellectual heritage has been developed by artisan communities over centuries. It is expressed through weave structures, motif vocabularies, and dyeing traditions, which represent both cultural identity and economic livelihood.[2] However, the legal framework intended to protect this heritage relies on a geography-of-origin approach. This method is not effective in addressing the design aspects of traditional textiles.[3]
India has one of the largest reservoirs of traditional textile knowledge in the world. This living intellectual heritage has been developed by artisan communities over centuries. It is expressed through weave structures, motif vocabularies, and dyeing traditions, which represent both cultural identity and economic livelihood. However, the legal framework intended to protect this heritage relies on a geography-of-origin approach. This method is not effective in addressing the design aspects of traditional textiles.
India’s primary instrument for this purpose, the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (hereinafter ‘GI Act’), grants protection to goods whose quality, reputation, or characteristic is essentially attributable to their geographical origin.[4]
While this framework affords meaningful protection against mislabelling, preventing, for example, the sale of a Surat-woven fabric as ‘Banarasi’ , it provides no cognisable remedy when a Paris-based house extracts the motif system of Banarasi brocade and incorporates it into a couture collection manufactured elsewhere.[5]
This article poses the following research question: Does India’s existing GI regime adequately protect the design and motif dimensions of traditional textiles from global luxury brand misappropriation, and if not, what sui generis reforms are warranted? The article proceeds as follows: Section II establishes the background and conceptual framework, surveying relevant statutes and prior scholarship. Section III conducts the core legal analysis. Section IV examines pertinent case law. Section V offers critical analysis and findings. Section VI concludes with reform recommendations.
Background and Conceptual Framework
The international legal framework for Geographical Indications (GIs), anchored in TRIPS Articles 22–24, mandates that WTO Member States prevent misleading origin claims.[6] India operationalized this through the GI Act, 1999, and the 2002 Rules, defining GIs as signs identifying goods with qualities essentially attributable to their specific geography.[7]
The GI Act defines a geographical indication as a sign used on goods that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities, reputation, or characteristics essentially attributable to that origin.[8] The statute establishes two principal categories of registrable applicants: associations of persons or producers representing the interests of the producers of the goods, and authorised users who are entitled to use the registered indication. Enforcement of these rights is further operationalised through the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002, which prescribe the procedural framework governing registration, opposition, and protection.[9]
Academic scholarship on geographical indications and traditional knowledge has long identified the structural tension between intellectual property systems based on individual authorship and traditional knowledge regimes characterised by collective and intergenerational creativity. Scholars such as Madhavi Sunder and Anupam Chander have argued that conventional intellectual property doctrines inadequately capture the communal and cumulative nature of traditional cultural production.⁵ Their influential critique of the “romance of the commons” highlights how treating traditional knowledge as freely accessible public domain material can inadvertently privilege the extractive capacities of well-resourced corporations while undermining the economic interests of the communities that developed such knowledge.[10]
At the domestic level, empirical studies conducted by the National Institute of Fashion Technology and the Office of the Development Commissioner for Handlooms have documented the economic vulnerability of artisan communities whose design heritage is frequently appropriated in international fashion markets while remaining undervalued within domestic supply chains.Furthermore, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce in its 2021 report on the functioning of the GI Act acknowledged the limitations of the current framework in protecting design elements associated with traditional goods and recommended legislative reconsideration of the existing regime.[11]
This conceptual limitation exposes a significant doctrinal gap. The legal trigger for GI protection is the misuse of a geographical designation, whereas contemporary luxury fashion appropriation typically involves the unauthorised use of traditional design elements such as motifs, weaving patterns, and aesthetic systems without making any explicit geographical claim. As a result, global fashion houses may reproduce culturally distinctive textile designs while remaining outside the formal scope of GI infringement. This structural gap represents the central legal lacuna that any reformed sui generis framework for protecting traditional textile heritage must address.[12]
Legal Analysis:
The Structural Deficiency of India’s GI Act in Addressing Design Misappropriation
The GI Act, as presently constituted, operationalises protection through a geographical nexus: protection attaches to the designation (name or sign), not to the design corpus associated with the designated product. Section 22 of the GI Act prohibits the use of registered GI designations on goods not originating from the indicated place.[13] However, no provision of the statute prohibits a non-Indian entity from replicating the visual grammar, weave structures or motif systems of, for example, Kanchipuram silk in a fabric manufactured in Lyon, France, provided that entity does not label its product “Kanchipuram.”
This structural deficiency is not accidental. it reflects the original TRIPS framework’s conception of GI protection as an origin-certification mechanism rather than a design-protection mechanism. TRIPS Article 22.2 requires protection against use that constitutes an act of unfair competition in the sense of Article 10bis of the Paris Convention, but this provision does not naturally extend to the scenario where a luxury brand deploys traditional design elements without false origin claims.[14]
Compounding this deficiency is the absence in Indian law of a dedicated traditional knowledge (TK) or traditional cultural expression (TCE) protection statute. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), while valuable as a defensive prior art database, is confined to preventing patent grants over TK and has no affirmative IP protection function.³ The Copyright Act, 1957, while theoretically applicable to original artistic works, poses several doctrinal obstacles: works of applied art receive attenuated protection; the originality standard under Section 13 may not capture communally evolved traditional designs; and the Act’s authorship framework is incompatible with collective, anonymous or time-immemorial creation.[15]
The Luxury Brand Misappropriation Vector: Economic and Legal Dimensions Global luxury fashion houses occupy a structurally advantageous position in the misappropriation economy. They possess the financial resources to conduct design research, the legal sophistication to avoid cognisable infringement, and access to intellectual property registration systems that can, paradoxically, convert traditional motifs into proprietary assets. The pattern of misappropriation typically operates through three vectors.
The first vector is design extraction without attribution, in which luxury brands incorporate traditional motif systems into collections without any acknowledgement of cultural origin, thereby commercially benefiting from the cultural cachet of “exotic” aesthetics while the originating communities receive no economic or reputational recognition.[16] The second vector is trademark registration of traditional motif elements, which has occurred in multiple documented instances, including attempts to register bindis, certain block-print patterns, and traditional jewellery forms as proprietary trademarks in foreign jurisdictions. The third and most subtle vector is aesthetic laundering, whereby traditional design vocabularies are incorporated into luxury goods, commercially amplified, and then returned to Indian markets as premium-priced global fashion, effectively pricing the originating communities out of the value chain their heritage created.
The Indian Trade Marks Act, 1999 provides limited recourse: Section 9(2)(b) prohibits registration of marks that would be likely to deceive or cause confusion, and Section 11 provides relative grounds for refusal, but neither provision is calibrated to protect traditional design elements per se. Section 9(1)(b)’s prohibition on registration of marks devoid of distinctive character provides no protection against descriptive uses of traditional motifs, and Indian trade mark law contains no analogue to the United States’ concept of “deceptive misdescriptiveness” that might be extended to cultural appropriation scenarios.
The Sui Generis Imperative: Comparative Legislative Models
Global efforts to address traditional cultural expression (TCE) misappropriation remain fragmented, though WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee has developed significant normative frameworks since 2009. Successful models like the EU’s Regulation 2024/1143 and Peru’s Law 27811 prove the feasibility of sui generis regimes. Similarly, India’s Biological Diversity Act establishes a precedent for specialized protection. A reformed Indian framework must integrate a design-element register, mandatory benefit-sharing, and community standing for Gram Sabhas to challenge foreign misappropriation, shifting from individual property logic to collective heritage sovereignty.[17]
Case Law Discussion
Darjeeling Tea Case: GI Registry and the Collective Enforcement Question
The Darjeeling tea GI dispute, adjudicated through proceedings before the GI Registry and later referenced in judicial decisions, established important principles regarding collective enforcement of GI rights. The Tea Board of India, as the registered proprietor of the “Darjeeling” geographical indication, successfully opposed unauthorised commercial use of the designation by foreign and domestic entities. The legal principle that emerged is that the registered GI proprietor has standing to initiate infringement proceedings and that use of the designation by producers not located in the notified geographical area constitutes infringement.[18]
This principle was reinforced in Tea Board of India v ITC Ltd, where the Calcutta High Court recognised the Tea Board’s authority to regulate and enforce the use of the “Darjeeling” GI in commercial contexts.[19] The case clarified that GI rights operate as collective property rights held in trust for the producing community and can be enforced by the authorised proprietor against misuse.
The relevance of the Darjeeling precedent to the present research question is instructive but also reveals the framework’s limitation. While the decision confirms robust enforcement of geographical designation rights, it simultaneously illustrates the law’s silence on the design dimension. A manufacturer could legally produce tea marketed with a visual identity strongly associated with Darjeeling through typography, imagery or colour palettes referencing Himalayan tea culture without incurring GI liability, provided the word “Darjeeling” itself is not used. This distinction maps directly onto the textile misappropriation problem: luxury brands may appropriate the design vocabulary of Banarasi or Kanchipuram textiles while remaining insulated from GI infringement liability.
Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma v Asda: Extended GI Protection and the Presentation Standard
In Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma v Asda Stores Ltd, the European Court of Justice extended the scope of protection for Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) beyond the mere use of the designation to encompass certain aspects of product presentation.[20] The Court held that the PDO for “Parma Ham” required slicing and packaging to occur within the designated region because these processes were integral to preserving the quality and reputation associated with the designation.
Although this case arose within the European PDO regulatory framework, its reasoning is relevant to debates concerning reform of the Indian GI regime. The ECJ’s logic—that GI protection may legitimately extend to characteristics contributing to the product’s reputation—suggests a broader understanding of what constitutes the protected subject matter of a geographical indication. Applied analogically, if the integrity of Parma Ham justifies protection over slicing techniques and presentation, then the argument that Banarasi brocade or Kanchipuram silk GIs should extend to their distinctive motif structures and aesthetic grammar becomes doctrinally plausible.
Evocation Doctrine in European GI Jurisprudence
A more expansive approach to GI protection emerged in Scotch Whisky Association v Michael Klotz[21], The Michael Klotz and Golden Bottling rulings establish an “evocation doctrine,” penalizing imagery that prompts consumer association with a protected GI. Since India’s 1999 Act lacks this mechanism, adopting a similar standard would enable enforcement against luxury brands exploiting traditional design vocabularies, even when the protected geographical name is omitted.
Critical Analysis and Findings
The preceding analysis identifies three key deficiencies in the current Indian legal framework. The first is a protection gap. The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 protects the geographical name of a product but not the design elements embedded in traditional textiles. As a result, distinctive aesthetic features such as weaving patterns and motif systems remain vulnerable to commercial appropriation by global luxury brands, even when the geographical designation itself is not used.
The second deficiency concerns enforcement capacity. The present system requires proceedings to be initiated by registered proprietors or authorised users. In practice, this creates barriers for artisan communities that often lack the institutional structure, financial resources, or legal expertise needed to pursue intellectual property litigation. Consequently, the communities whose cultural heritage is most affected frequently remain excluded from meaningful enforcement.
The third deficiency lies in the remedies framework. Even where infringement is proven, the remedies under sections 53 to 67 of the GI Act focus primarily on injunctions and penalties rather than compensation or benefit sharing. This fails to address the economic imbalance created when luxury brands derive commercial value from traditional Indian designs.
Comparative legal developments underscore the urgent need for Indian GI reform. EU Regulation 2024/1143 has set a global precedent by extending protection to craft products and explicitly prohibiting “evocation.” Similarly, the Pacific Community Model Law demonstrates that sui generis legislation can effectively codify collective cultural rights.
India’s own Biological Diversity Act, 2002, provides a domestic blueprint through its “Access and Benefit Sharing” (ABS) framework, proving that mechanisms for channeling commercial profits back to indigenous communities are legally viable. Furthermore, judicial trends from the Delhi High Court’s application of passing off to the Supreme Court’s recognition of cultural heritage in M. Siddiq signal a shift toward constitutionalizing cultural interests.[22]
With 45 million livelihoods at stake, the appropriation of textile designs without compensation is a crisis of economic justice. The current framework’s failure to safeguard these assets necessitates a transition toward a rights-based model that prioritizes cultural preservation and artisanal dignity.
Conclusion
The cumulative evidence presented in this research necessitates a fundamental re-evaluation of the Geographical Indications (GI) of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. It is the central finding of this study that the current statutory framework suffers from an inherent structural inadequacy; while it successfully safeguards the nomenclature of origin, it remains fundamentally ill-equipped to protect the aesthetic and ornamental dimensions of Indian textile heritage.
Under the existing regime, global luxury conglomerates are permitted to navigate a “Legal Lacuna,” where they can physically replicate the sophisticated visual vocabulary of indigenous motifs such as Kanchipuram weaves or Pochampally ikat while technically avoiding infringement by omitting the protected geographical name. This “design-mining” constitutes a form of Commercial Expropriation that the current GI law is powerless to restrain.
Therefore, this study advocates for a Sui Generis Legislative Framework. This proposed reform would transition the protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) from a mere merchant-centric model of “reputation” to a rights-based model of “Design Integrity.” Such a shift is not only a matter of Intellectual Property reform but a constitutional imperative to uphold the Cultural Sovereignty and Economic Dignity of India’s artisanal communities.
References and Bibliography
Statutes and International Instruments
Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (India).
Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002 (India).
Trade Marks Act, 1999 (India).
Copyright Act, 1957 (India).
Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (India).
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 1C.
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883, as amended).
Regulation (EU) 2024/1143 of the European Parliament and of the Council on geographical indications for craft and industrial products (2024).
Cases
Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma v Asda Stores Ltd, Case C-108/01, [2003] ECR I-5121 (ECJ).
Scotch Whisky Association v Michael Klotz, Case C-44/17, [2019] ETMR 11 (ECJ).
Tea Board of India v ITC Ltd, AIR 2011 Cal 194.
Bhawar Lal v Union of India, Geographical Indications Registry, Opposition No GI/1/2004.
Books and Book Chapters
Madhavi Sunder, From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Global Justice (Yale University Press 2012).
Dev Gangjee, Relocating the Law of Geographical Indications (Cambridge University Press 2012).
Susy Frankel & Daniel Gervais (eds), Advanced Introduction to International Intellectual Property (Edward Elgar 2016).
Journal Articles
Anupam Chander & Madhavi Sunder, “The Romance of the Public Domain” (2004) 92 California Law Review 1331.
Dwijen Rangnekar, “The Socio-Economics of Geographical Indications: A Review of Empirical Evidence from Europe” (2004) UNCTAD-ICTSD Project on IPRs and Sustainable Development.
Teshager Worku Dagne, “Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity in Ethiopia” (2010) 34 Journal of Ethiopian Law 1.
Uma Suthersanen, “The WIPO Development Agenda: Catalyst for a Development-Oriented Intellectual Property System?” (2012) 15 Journal of World Intellectual Property 2.
Shamnad Basheer & T Prashant Reddy, “The Specificity of TRIPS: TRIPS-Plus Measures and the Geographical Indications of Goods” (2008) 40 International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law 156.
Official Reports and Institutional Documents
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, Report on the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India 2021).
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mapping of Craft Clusters in India (Research Report, 2019).
World Intellectual Property Organization, Geographical Indications: An Introduction (WIPO Publication No. 952E, 2017).
World Intellectual Property Organization, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) Overview.
World Intellectual Property Organization, Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, Draft Articles on the Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions (WIPO/GRTKF/IC/40/4, 2019).
Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, Ikat Textiles of India.
Media and Online Sources
Riya Ashok Madayi, “After Prada Kolhapuri Drama, Dior Faces Backlash Over ₹1.67 Crore Mukaish Coat With Zero Credit to India,” Times of India (4 July 2025).
Priyanka Khanna, “Beyond Kolhapuris: When Fashion Rebrands South Asia’s Cultural Fabric,” Grazia India (24 June 2025).
“Cultural Appropriation Costs Indian Artisans Heavily,” Local Samosa.
“Cultural Appropriation of Textiles: Are We Guilty Too?” World of Ikat.
[1] Riya Ashok Madayi, After Prada Kolhapuri Drama, Dior Faces Backlash Over ₹1.67 Crore Mukaish Coat With Zero Credit to India, Times of India (July 4, 2025); Priyanka Khanna, Beyond Kolhapuris: When Fashion Rebrands South Asia’s Cultural Fabric, Grazia India (June 24, 2025).
[2] Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Ikat Textiles of India, Government of India; Pochampally Ikat, Incredible India.
[3] Madhavi Sunder, From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Global Justice 97 (Yale Univ. Press 2012).
[4] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (India).
[5] Dev Gangjee, Relocating the Law of Geographical Indications 214 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012); Muqayyash (Mukaish) Embroidery, Wikipedia; Cultural Appropriation of Textiles: Are We Guilty Too?, World of Ikat; Cultural Appropriation Costs Indian Artisans Heavily, Local Samosa.
[6] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights arts. 22–24, Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 1C.
[7] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (India).
[8] Id. § 2(1)(e).
[9] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002 (India).
[10] Anupam Chander & Madhavi Sunder, The Romance of the Public Domain, 92 Calif. L. Rev. 1331, 1335 (2004).
[11] National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mapping of Craft Clusters in India (2019); Office of the Development Commissioner for Handlooms, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, Handloom Sector Reports.; Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, Report on the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (2021).
[12] Dev Gangjee, Relocating the Law of Geographical Indications 214 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2012).
[13] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, No. 48 of 1999, § 22 (India).
[14] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights art. 22(2), Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, 1869 U.N.T.S. 299.
[15] World Intellectual Property Organization, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) Overview (WIPO).
[16] Copyright Act, No. 14 of 1957, §§ 13, 2(c) (India).
[17] World Intellectual Property Organization, Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC), WIPO/GRTKF/IC documents.
; Regulation (EU) 2024/1143 of the European Parliament and of the Council on geographical indications for craft and industrial products (2024).
[18] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, No. 48 of 1999, § 22 (India).
[19] Tea Board of India v. ITC Ltd., (2011) Calcutta High Court.
[20] Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma v. Asda Stores Ltd., Case C-108/01, [2003] ECR I-5121.
[21] Scotch Whisky Association v. Michael Klotz, Case C-44/17, [2019] ETMR 11 (ECJ).
[22] Paula Zito, Crafting Identity: Lessons for Australia from the European Union’s Geographical Indications Framework—Crafting Culture, Anchored in Place, J. Intellectual Prop. L. & Prac., Feb. 2, 2026
