Mother Teresa’s Blue-Bordered Sari declared an Intellectual Property

Mother Terasa’s blue border sari which worn by nuns of Missionaries of Charity was recognised as Intellectual Property of Missionaries of Charity on September 4, 2016, the day the Mother Teresa was canonized.

• The Trade Marks Registry, Government of India, has granted the registration of the trade mark for that pattern of the blue border of sari.
• Intellectual Property attorney Biswajit Sarkar mentioned that it took three years for the missionary to make the sari trademarked.
• After a series of strict legal proceedings, it was granted. This is the first time that a uniform has been made intellectual property. It has obtained “distinctive symbolic identity” of the Missionaries of Charity.
• Mother Teresa along with her junior Loreto Convent in Kolkata bought the sari on August 1948. They have bought that sari from Howrah for Rs 2.50 paise.
• Blue borders associate the colour with Mother Mary and it symbolises purity.
• These blue border saris are woven at the Missionaries of Charity-run Gandhiji Prem Niwas at Titagarh. Around 4,000 such saris are woven annually and are distributed among nuns all over the world.

Key points of Intellectual Property :-

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the intellect for which a monopoly (when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity) is assigned to designated owners by law.

• Intellectual property rights include patents, copyright, industrial design rights, trademarks, plant variety rights, trade dress, geographical indications, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.

About Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born on 26 August 1910 into a Kosovar Albanian family in Skopje ,now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, Ottoman Empire.

• She baptised as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, and came to India in 1929. She extensively served the people in Calcutta who suffered from leprosy.
• She died at the age of 87 on 5^th September 1997 at Calcutta, West Bengal, India