Tshejor’s Ayzey, the first registered homemade pickle manufacturing company and distributor took the first prize of Nu 70,000 at the first National Trademark Award yesterday.
Bhutan Alternatives, an e-waste management project dealing with printer toner cartridge waste, won the second prize of Nu 50,000.
Crystal Moon Products that deals with all types of agro produce, providing food supplements in the country as well as neighboring countries, came third winning Nu 30,000.
This is the first time the economic affairs ministry held a National Trademark Award for the small and cottage industries.
The award is an effort to promote brand competition, leading to quality products in the market.
A trademark is a name or a symbol that a company uses on its products and cannot legally be used by another company.
The winners said trademark has helped in building a name and reputation for their products in the market.
“It helped me in branding and diversification of my products,” Tshewang Dema of Tshejor Ayzey said. “I could make more products and it helped in popularizing the products.”
“Within two years of getting the trademark, we have been able to cover up almost 19 dzongkhags,” Leki Dawa of Bhutan Alternatives said.
“We were able to build trust and reliability among the customers,” Chhimi Dema of Crystal Moon Product said. “There are also no risks of replication of products by others.”
The businesses were assessed based on the use of trademarks, sale of products using the trademark, employment and community development and overall business impact.
The introduction of the award is also in keeping with the Intellectual Property Policy 2018 launched last month and is one of the measures to encourage innovation and creativity.
“They use trademarks as their product brand and that generates brand competition, which leads to improvement of the quality of goods and services,” Kinley Tenzin Wangchuk, the Director General of the Department of Intellectual Property said.
“The other significant role is trademarks really help enterprises to distinguish themselves in our market.”
The ministry plans to make the trademark award an annual event.
It will encourage more small, individual and home-based entrepreneurs to create and register their trademarks to enhance their competitiveness in the market.
