Bangladesh has made great strides in its economy, and per capita income in the country has increased both at the individual and collective level. In a pattern seen previously across South Asia, as the country’s populace has become relatively more wealthy, the importance of intellectual property, including brands and trademarks, has grown alongside. 

But there is still work to do, as Sazzad Reza Basunia, a contributor to The Business Standard in Dhaka wrote last year in the newspaper. Bangladesh, he writes, has yet to develop ecommerce-based initiatives addressing the country’s rural population.  

“The rural people’s connection to e-commerce platforms has so far been that of being the producers. No initiative has yet been taken to address the rural population as consumers,” he wrote.  

“City dwellers may not realize, but shopping in rural areas is not as easy as in urban areas. One study found that 73 percent of people from rural areas go to the city for wider access to goods, such as mobile [phones], TVs, motorcycles, etc. In order to do this, they have to travel an average of 20km. 

“Rural consumers, as a result, face major problems such as the proliferation of counterfeit products, unavailability of branded products, and lack of scope to choose from a wide variety of products. Due to low vendor density in these regions, the distribution frequencies of the big companies are low,” he wrote. 

Basunia’s outlook on bringing ecommerce to rural Bangladesh was generally upbeat, noting the country’s future plans for ecommerce, and its recent success with rural distribution during Covid-19. 

“During the first wave of Covid-19, libraries in the country had closed due to the countrywide lockdown. In order to ensure the supply of academic books is in line with demand while keeping channel partners’ interests stable, we adopted the online-to-offline strategy. In a very short time, we created a platform where we took orders and arranged the deliveries from a library nearest to the students. The response was more than what we could have anticipated,” he said. 

A “change maker” entrepreneur in Bangladesh’s villages will likely be just what Bangladesh needs for a strong ecommerce platform. That platform, in turn, will bring brands to life not just in the country’s cities, but also in its rural areas, and that will ensure that Bangladesh’s IP lawyers will have plenty of work in the future.  

It is against that backdrop that we bring you Bangladesh’s IP Experts, a list of 30 key intellectual property lawyers who almost certainly be involved in the future of brands in Bangladesh. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s Bangladesh IP Experts. – GREGORY GLASS 

Bangladesh’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to in-house counsel in Bangladesh, Asia and elsewhere and around the world, as well as South Asia-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers, including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.  

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has nearly 45 years of collective experience in researching and understanding Bangladesh’s legal market. 

All private practice intellectual property lawyers in Bangladesh were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion in the process. 

The names of our 30 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.