Whether you are a trader or you are a manufacturer, trademark registration is a necessity in today’s world to secure the future. During business, which usually includes an offer of products and services for sale, a businessman always focus on building his brand by providing the best product and services, by spreading good words about his offered product and services i.e. marketing, and by creating good relationships and feeling of trust between his customers and him. But, if during this process, someone else uses the same brand name or same business name and promotes his business under that name, all hard work will go to waste as people will get confused due to resemblance and may buy their product instead of yours. Also, if that someone, get your brand name or business name registered in his name before you as a trademark, then it is also possible that you will be devoid of using the name for which you made a lot of efforts. This is why Trademark registration in India is considered a must, even though it is not mandatory by law.
Trademark is an asset or property which can be sold for money if the use of it with the product and services provides people a sense of security and quality due to their trust in that business that has used it in past or is using it in present. Trademark provides the product, a unique identity of its own, and Trademark registration ensures that no one will be able to use the same identity in the present or future. For ex. whenever we need mineral water, we demand “Bisleri” by the vendor and as soon as we read the word mark “Bisleri” on the bottle, we get 100% sure that the product is real and this sense of confirmation comes from the fact that it is a trademark and cannot be used by any other person except its original manufacturer or someone who has the authority to use it.
What is Trademark?
In simple words, Trademark is a special symbol, design, or name that a trader or manufacturer puts on its products and that cannot be used by any other person i.e. the specific mark of identification of a particular product which signifies its relationship with the person who manufactures or trades it.
As per Section 2(zb) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, Trade Mark means a mark capable of being represented graphically and which is capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one person from those of others and may include the shape of goods, their packaging, and combination of colors.
Types of Trademark
- Names, including a human being’s name or surname or company’s name.
- Alphabetical Letters or numerals or any combination of them.
- Symbols
- Combination of colors with words, numbers, etc.
- A newly invented word or any dictionary word or words.
- Monograms
- Any specific shape or picture.
- Any Specific way of packaging.
- Any 3D mark.
- Any Sound Mark or phonetic represented in words or graphics etc.
Process of Trademark Registration in India
Registration of Trademark secures one’s right to use a particular mark in the present and future but before starting this process, one has to make sure that no similar trademark is in use and registered already by someone else otherwise, the one who got registered first will get priority in case of court proceedings for infringement of the trademark.
So, it is better to conduct a trademark search first. One can do the trademark search online by oneself or can approach the Registry Office to get the research done. Let’s go through the method of conducting the search in online mode:
Trademark Search
Following is the link to the Trademark Public Search:
https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/tmrpublicsearch/frmmain.aspx
One can also get access to this link by typing trademark public search on the GOOGLE search engine. As soon as one clicks on the link, the following image will appear.
In the dropdown list of “Start with”, choose whether, the trademark contains the word like the trademark of “Bisleri” contains the word “Bisleri”, or match with something like “Fire”. After selecting this criterion, mention the word (value) you have chosen as a trademark in the opposite cell.
One also needs to mention the class in the next cell to which his/her products belong. To access the code of the class of product which will be needed to mention in the next cell, click on the class details and it will forward on another website where one can get the details of the code of his class by entering the class category in search term cell-like in the picture, “Legal Services” has been provided as a category of class. After that click on the search button on the right corner like provided in the image below;
After dragging down on the page, the result of the search appears like provided in the image below. The code received from the search for “Legal Services” is 45.
Or, in case one has no idea regarding class or category under which his product or service falls, he can also get the ideas of the class by pointing on the numbers provided in the table which one will get after clicking on the table sign nearby the cell of nice class like provided in the image.
In the image below, the category of Legal service comes out after pointing to 45, so the code is 45.
After getting the code, which is needed to insert on the previous website of “Public Search” as above said like provided in the image below, choose criteria. In the image, the criterion has been selected as “Contains”, wordmark as “Justice”. Now, input class code; like 45 has been inputted as Class Code in the image below, and click on “search”.
After the search, Similar Trademarks will appear on the screen, and one can know whether someone else is using the same trademark or not as provided in the image below after going through all of them.
2. Filing of Application for Registration:
After ensuring that the mark one want to register is not already registered by any other person before him, one can apply for the registration in the following modes:
- In offline mode, by visiting the Public office of Registry of Trademark in India personally or by sending the application by post to the office, or
- In online mode by applying to the website, after attaching the required documents and making payment for the registration.
The link for online registration on the official site of the government is as follows:
https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/trademarkefiling/user/frmNewRegistration.aspx
One can get this link by searching trademark registration on Google Search Engine.
After clicking on the link, it will forward a person to the official website as provided in the image below.
If a person is already a registered user, then he doesn’t need to register again and he can directly login into his ID. As a new user, one needs to register here by selecting the category in which the applicant is applying i.e. whether he is the proprietor himself or his attorney, or his agent.
After selecting the type of applicant, a person needs to enter the code specially created in his searching name. If he has the code and remembers it then he has to enter that code and “proceed”, but if the person already has the code but forgot or if he is new, then he needs to click on the “search” option to get the code. Also, to register on this website, a person needs his digital signature. After leaving the cursor in the cell of “enter code”, click on the “search”. A person needs to input his name or company’s name as the proprietor like “Raman” and after inputting that, he will be provided the list of the person who has the codes with this name and if he already had the code, then he has to find his code from the list. But if he is a new user then he has to create his code by clicking on the “Add New”. He will get the form to fill in the details for the creation of code. After filling in the details, submit the form and the code will appear on the screen in his name.
After filing the code on the previous page in the cell of “Enter Code” like provided in the image above, click on proceed and it will forward to the registration form where the proprietor name and code will already appear in the form. In this form, a person needs to provide the details of his digital signature, the User Id and Password he wants to create, and also his Email Id and Mobile number. Click on “Register” after filing all these details. The person will also receive the Login Id and Password on email Id provided in the form by him and with this login Id and password; he can log in into the Account by clicking on “Sign In”. One can log in by using his digital signature which he added earlier as mentioned above or by using the password and User Id generated earlier and filling the application form.
For the user manual to get more details on how to fill the application form, click on the link below:
https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/trademarkefiling/UsefullDownloads/User_Manual_etrademarkfiling.pdf
To know the details about fees and payments, click on the link provided below:
http://www.ipindia.nic.in/form-and-fees-tm.htm
A receipt is provided after filing the application which is to be kept safely for future reference.
One can track the status of his application by clicking on the following link:
https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/eregister/eregister.aspx
3. Trade Mark Examination
After the trademark is filed, the examiner examines the discrepancies and errors if any exists in the Trademark like he will check if the trademark conflicts with the previous registered Trade Mark, or if the Trade Mark belongs to the prohibited category. The examination takes place within 2 months from the filing of the application for trademark registration.
In case, the examiner accepts the trademark unconditionally, it gets published in the Trademark Journal. If he objects, then the objection stated in the examination report needs to be resolved, answered, and responded to by the applicant within one month of the report.
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