Nun’s former lawyer says he will take legal action against unauthorised use of design to combat ‘misuse’ of reputation 
 
 The white, blue-rimmed cotton sari made famous by Saint Teresa of Kolkata has been trademarked in a case the nun’s former lawyer has claimed as a first for a religious uniform anywhere in the world. 
 
 The design of the sari, which Teresa is said to have purchased from a Kolkata market the evening she was granted permission to start working in the city’s slums, is now the exclusive intellectual property of the Missionaries of Charity, the order the nun founded nearly 70 years ago. 
 
 A lawyer for the order, Biswajit Sarkar, said he had applied for the trademark in 2013 to combat the “misuse” of the saint’s reputation, often for commercial gain. The trademark was formally granted in early 2016 but only recently publicised. 
 
 He said he would now take “severe” legal action against unauthorised use of the design, even by charitable enterprises that the order’s nuns had been willing to tolerate. 
 
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 “There are many organisations starting schools naming themselves after Mother Teresa, and wearing the uniform, where the Missionaries of Charity have no connection,” he said. 
 
 Teachers at some schools named after Teresa had been writing to the Missionaries of Charity complaining about late salary payments, unaware their schools were separate entities, he said. 
 
 A cooperative bank had also been established in the nun’s name, he said, and in another instance, religious books were being published with the blue-striped trimming, giving the impression they were endorsed by the Kolkata-based order. 
 
 Sarkar, who has also had the name Mother Teresa trademarked, said the “soft-hearted” nuns had initially objected to also copyrighting the uniform. “They don’t like taking court cases,” he said. “They say, ‘One day the people will understand they are doing the wrong thing.’ 
 
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 “But we cannot allow that. Now if anybody is misrepresenting the Missionaries of Charity we can take severe legal action.” 
 
 He said no exceptions would be made for use of the pattern by other religious orders, or by not-for-profit enterprises. 
 
 “Even the nuns were asking me, if the people are not using it for commercial gains, should we stop them?” he said. 
 
 “But whether it is for commercial gain or not is not the issue. We are thinking about our identity. If the blue pattern, which is unique in the world, is diluted or used by the public, then one fine morning the organisation will lose their identity.” 
 
 Saint Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to an Albanian family in 1910, and joined a Kolkata-based convent at age 21. Horrified by the poverty in Kolkata, she sought permission to leave the institution and work among the city’s poor. 
 
 In 1950, she established the Missionaries of Charity, which now runs 758 homes, hospices and shelters in 139 countries around the world. She died in 1997 and was canonised by Pope Francis in September last year. 
 
 Teresa’s emphasis on helping the “poorest of the poor” earned her global admiration and a slew of awards including the Nobel peace prize in 1979. 
 
 But the nun’s work has also drawn sharp criticism. Aroup Chatterjee, a doctor who grew up in Kolkata, wrote in a 2003 book that Teresa exaggerated the number of people her order had assisted, and treated the sick and dying in sub-standard medical facilities, despite having the money for upgrades. 
 
 A 2013 report in a religious studies journal concluded the Vatican had consistently ignored the nun’s “rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding … abortion, contraception and divorce”. 
 
 Sarkar, who works pro bono for the nuns, said his next goal was to copyright Teresa’s name and the distinctive uniform of her order in other countries. 
 
 He will also seek to remove children’s versions of her sari that are advertised on Amazon’s India store and the websites of other retailers. “Instantly we’ll work on that, we will write to them,” he said. ||||| KOLKATA: The famous blue-bordered sari of Mother Teresa , who has been canonised as Saint Teresa of Calcutta by the Vatican, has been recognised as an Intellectual Property of the Missionaries of Charity "The Trade Marks Registry , Government of India, has granted the registration of the trade mark for that pattern of blue border of sari," Intellectual Property attorney Biswajit Sarkar said.The diminutive nun of Albanian descent went around the streets of Kolkata since 1948 to be with the poor and the destitutes wearing a white sari with three blue borders, the outer border being wider than the two inner ones."The blue-designed border on the sari worn by nuns of Missionaries of Charity was recognised as Intellectual Property for the organisation on September four, 2016, the day the Mother was canonised," Sarkar told PTI here."The Missionaries of Charity does not believe in publicity and as such it was not publicised, but since we are witnessing unscrupulous and unfair usage of the design across the globe, we are now trying to spread awareness among people about the trademark," Sarkar said."The blue border pattern is a distinctive symbolic identity of Missionaries of Charity under the concept of colour trade mark protection," he said.Applications were filed before the Trade Marks Registry on December 12, 2013 and after "a stringent test of legal proceedings" for nearly three years, the registrations were granted.In order to mark the sainthood of Mother Teresa, Government of India granted the trade mark registration on the same day on September four, 2016, despite it being a Sunday, Sarkar said.The exclusive right of use of the said blue pattern on white saris adopted by the Missionaries of Charity is unique and is the first time ever that a uniform has been protected under the Intellectual Property rights, the attorney said.Born in 1910 at Skopje in Macedonia in a Catholic family and baptised as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, she came to India in 1929 as Sister Mary Teresa and went to Darjeeling for her novitiate period.She later came to Kolkata and was assigned as a teacher at Saint Mary's High School for Girls before she was given consent by her convent in 1948 to work for the poor.That year she left the Loreto Convent donning the blue striped white sari that she would wear in public throughout her life.The saris with the three blue stripes are woven at the Missionaries of Charity-run Gandhiji Prem Niwas at Titagarh in North 24 Parganas.Around 4,000 such saris are woven annually and are distributed among nuns all over the world.
– The nuns who belong to Mother Teresa's order were willing to forgive and forget groups taking advantage of their late matriarch's image. Their lawyer? Not so much. And that's why the Missionaries of Charity in India now owns the trademark to the saint's famous blue-bordered sari, reports the Guardian. It seems that organizations all over the world were making use of the design and suggesting, intentionally or not, that they were affiliated with the group. The nuns of the order shrugged it off for years, saying, "One day the people will understand they are doing the wrong thing," per attorney Biswajit Sarkar, who began going after the trademark for the order in 2013. "Now if anybody is misrepresenting the Missionaries of Charity we can take severe legal action," he says. The former Sister Mary Teresa began wearing the distinctive, blue-striped sari in the late 1940s when she got permission to leave her convent and begin working among India's poor, recounts the Times of India. Today, about 4,000 of the saris are woven annually and distributed to the order's nuns around the world. Attorney Sarkar says this is the first time a trademark has been issued for a religious uniform. (Pope Francis made Teresa a saint last year.)