Basmati trade mark: why the word alone failed in the Federal Court
In 2018 alone, Coles sold 499,516 one-kilogram packs of a single basmati product from Pakistan. Justice Dowling of the Federal Court cited the figure in the judgment of 11 August 2026 dismissing an appeal by India’s agricultural export authority, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, or APEDA. At issue was its application to register BASMATI as a certification trade mark for rice. He was not satisfied that the word, on its own, can separate rice certified by APEDA from rice that is not. India’s basmati trade mark bid for the word alone has now failed before the Registrar of Trade Marks and in court.
A certification trade mark tells buyers that goods have certain qualities or characteristics, which can include where they come from. IP Australia says it may not register one unless the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has approved the rules behind it. The case was decided under section 177 of the Trade Marks Act 1995: an application must be rejected if the mark cannot distinguish goods certified by the applicant from goods that are not.
A word for a kind of rice
APEDA, a statutory body set up under a 1985 Act of the Indian Parliament, runs a licensing scheme for basmati exported from India to Australia. It filed two applications, for the word and for a logo containing it. In December 2022 a delegate of the Registrar refused the word and accepted the logo, and on appeal the court considered the word afresh.
Its answer turned on what basmati means to people here. In Australia, Justice Dowling accepted, the word signifies a type of rice grown in more than one place, India and Pakistan included. Basmati, he concluded, is “a term that other traders, without improper motives, might legitimately need to use”.
Significant Indian sales were not enough on their own
Agreed facts put basmati exports from India to Australia at more than 306,095 tonnes between 1988 and 2019, worth around US$380 million, and the judge accepted that Indian sales here had been significant. Those sales did not carry the case.
Pakistani basmati, the evidence established, is sold here in substantial volumes; the Coles figure was one example. With the word also used for Pakistani rice that APEDA has not certified, the judge did not accept that volume of sales alone showed the mark had come to distinguish APEDA’s rice.
Most survey answers named no place at all
APEDA’s evidence included a survey by Ipsos Australia, conducted in April 2020 for its application. To its first two questions, on what came to mind at the name and what more respondents could say about it, 70.9 per cent of answers were classed as rice only. To the third, on where basmati rice comes from, 55.6 per cent of answers mentioned no place. At most 29.8 per cent of respondents said India alone, a figure the Registrar called likely overstated. Pakistan, the next most often named country, came up in 9.9 per cent of answers.
The judge gave the survey limited weight. At its highest, he wrote, the data “may establish that consumers have an association between BASMATI and India”. It did not prove that the public would rely on the word alone as a sign of APEDA certification.
One certifier, two countries
APEDA also argued that basmati is a geographical indication shared across borders, pointing to Australia’s obligations under the TRIPS Agreement. The judge accepted the Registrar’s submission that those obligations give no principled basis for widening section 177. He did leave room: a geographical indication spanning more than one country could in principle count among the other circumstances the section allows for. Recognition in multiple jurisdictions does not meet the test, he found, where the mark covers rice “certified under the regime of one jurisdiction alone”.
Packaging did not change the outcome either. Food sold in Australia must already be labelled with its place of origin, the court observed, and a pack of basmati here may say Product of India or Product of Pakistan. APEDA’s rules would have required retail packs carrying the mark to show Product of India prominently, and APEDA proposed a condition preserving the legitimate use of basmati for rice from Pakistan. Even with both, the judge said, ordinary Australian consumers would understand the word the same way.
A second basmati trade mark, still contested
The logo, trade mark 1991951, is an oval of mountains and grain bearing the word Basmati. Filed on 26 February 2019, it had its acceptance put on hold in January 2023 while the ACCC assessed its certification rules, and was formally accepted on 14 September 2023. Two oppositions followed, from Ricegrowers Limited in November 2023 and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan in April 2024; the register now lists the first as discontinued. The register still shows the logo as accepted and opposed, with dispute evidence received as recently as 30 September 2026.
The Pakistani authority’s own application for a certification logo mark featuring the name was among the evidence in court. On 12 August 2026 Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce welcomed the ruling as a significant victory for the country’s position that “no single national authority can claim an exclusive right over the word Basmati”. Under the Trade Marks Act, an appeal from this ruling to a Full Court of the Federal Court, usually three or more judges sitting together, would need the court’s leave. IP Australia’s register still lists the word application as under examination, with court action pending.
The court made two orders: the appeal is dismissed, and APEDA pays the Registrar’s costs. Neither mentions a label, and the origin line on the pack still says where the rice comes from. What the word itself says is another matter. Basmati, the court found, names a kind of rice, and that rice grows on both sides of a border.
