ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: The two-day parleys between officials of India and Pakistan over the issue of a possible joint registration of Basmati rice concluded here on Saturday inconclusive.

However, both the sides agreed to carry the dialogue forward and meet sometime in the first quarter of next year in New Delhi to achieve “uniformity of views” on the three agenda items – consensus on the definition of Basmati; the areas where Basmati is produced historically and how to make joint efforts to stop a third country from registering Basmati under the Geographical Indication (GI) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

This was the second meeting of the Pak-India Joint Working Group on possibilities of registration of Basmati rice as a joint GI.

Pakistan’s delegation was headed by Joint Secretary (Exports), Ministry of Commerce, Azher Ali Chaudhry, while the Indian team was led by Joint Secretary of the Indian Department of Commerce, Dinesh Sharma.

A commerce ministry official said that both sides shared technical information on standards and the delimitation of Basmati growing areas. They also discussed how both the countries could challenge “a third party infringement”.

Due to immense pressure from growers and exporters of Basmati, Pakistan had last year considered legal action against India for announcing Super Basmati rice as an originally Indian produce.

The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) and Rice Export Association of Pakistan (Reap) were ready to represent Pakistan and proceed with the case in an Indian court. However, both the countries during the course of composite dialogue of June 2006 had decided to resolve the issue through dialogues by constituting a joint working group.

The working group had held its first meeting in New Delhi in April this year and had agreed to iron out differences.

But, these are not only India and Pakistan which are proving a threat to each other as far as the patent rights of Basmati is concerned, but other parties are also trying to register Basmati as their GI.

RiceTec Inc, a US-based company, was granted a controversial patent in September 1997 on Basmati rice grains and lines. India had challenged this patent and RiceTec Inc was forced to withdraw its claim.

The meeting discussed as to how both the countries could take a joint stand against any such infringement in future.

Resultantly, the US Patent and Trademark Office prohibited RiceTec from using the term Basmati and restricted the scope of the patent to three specific rice strains developed by the US company that are not related to varieties produced in India. Pakistan was also expected to pursue the case to safeguard its own interests.

Due to strong Indian lobby and effective diplomacy, the European Union (EU) has already said that it would not accept Basmati registration separately and consider it as a product of both Pakistan and India.

This was also one of the reasons that Pakistan had to agree to holding talks over the joint registration of Basmati despite the fact that it had proofs that the product historically originated from the Pakistan’s Punjab.

Pakistan had also notified DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) testing of super basmati, which proved that its characteristics matched with the variety already notified in the Gazette of Pakistan on January 1, 1998.