Parallel import: A comparision with different countries

If we study the intellectual rights of an owner of any intellectual property, be it patents, trademarks or copyrights, one would surely realize, how important these intellectual rights are for any intellectual property owner. These rights – economic and moral – provide the owner with material rewards, reputations and most importantly, an incentive to work further. But once these rights are exhausted the owner cannot further take the plea of his intellectual rights and claim for damages. However this question of extent of exhaustion of rights pops up in case of parallel imports, where the product are manufactured and sold genuinely but are distributed in jurisdiction where they are not intended to be distributed. In such cases the question comes that, why, if the owner has once exhausted his rights over the product by selling it genuinely, the subsequent seller in another jurisdiction is held guilty. The paper addresses this question and compares the legal scenario concerning parallel importation among different countries, with focus on India.