Brand building is quite an ordeal in today’s competitive world. In many cases, the only differentiator of your product can be the brand or the legacy that you create with it. Having a well established differentiator is one of the pivotal steps in building a business in a market as wide as that of India’s. While building your brand, you also need to make sure how to protect the intellectual properties that you create on the way. This determines a lot of your brand’s success and its security definitely. The best way to protect your IPs is by registering for a trademark in India. Trademarks help you protect your creation that in return helps build a unique identity of your own brand. But the process of registration of Trademark in India can become a tad bit tedious or difficult for a layman to understand at times. It is advisable that you hire a lawyer to help you out in this process or before taking any steps individually, understand the entire process fully. In this article, we will try and break down the full process of trademark registration in India in a few simple steps that will help you to get done with it easily.
Types of Trademark:
Under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 the different types of trademarks that can be registered are:-
- Product Trademark: Trademarks that are designed to identify the business’s products.
- Service Trademark: Trademarks designed to identify the services of the entity. For example, the trademark for network and broadcasting service is a service trademark. These also help in advertising the service provided.
- Collective Trademark: Trademarks registered in the name of groups or organizations. They help people connect members with the group during commercial or business activities.
- Certification Trademark: They are certifying trademarks which help people judge the quality and its safety levels, like material used, origin and other specific features of goods and services.
Steps for registration of Trademark in India:
- Searching for the Trademark:
Whenever you are getting started with the process of registration of trademark in India, you must always begin with searching for it before you proceed with the legal procedures. Many entrepreneurs and marketing personnels skip this step because they think that their brand name or IP is way too unique to be familiar with any others. But, there is no real harm in running a search just to be sure. On the contrary, if you look it up you avoid going through any trademark litigation situation later in the near future.
- Applying for Trademark:
After you make sure that your logo and brand name is absolutely unique and it is not registered with the Trademark Registry Of India, you can start applying for the trademark to protect your intellectual properties. Presently, the application happens online and after it is filed properly, you will get an official receipt instantly for future reference.
- Verification & Examination of the application:
After the filing is done properly, the application goes through rigorous processes of verification and examination which can take upto 12-18 months. If you are lucky then the application can be approved right away or else objected partially or fully. If the trademark gets approved then it also gets published in the trademark journal of India. And, if there are conditions, then the entrepreneur is given a month’s time to fulfill the conditions and get his or her trademark application approved. Even after this if the trademark is not approved, the entrepreneur can request for a hearing to justify his or her side and if they succeed, the trademark gets published in the journal and is thus approved as well.
- Publication of the Trademark:
Publication of the trademark is mobilized in the trademark registration process so that anyone who objects to the registering of the trademark has a fair shot at opposing the same. If, after 3-4 months from publication there is no such allegation, the trademark proceeds for registration. In case there is opposition; there is a fair hearing and decisions are finalized by the registrar.
- Receiving the registration certificate:
After the trademark is published in the trademark journal of India, then you will receive a registration certificate issued with the seal of the trademark office. This can be safely called the penultimate state of the process of registration of trademark in India.
- Renewal Of Trademark:
You can apply for the renewal of your trademark after every ten years if you want to in order to keep your brand name and its image secure. Otherwise, any budding business can copy your model and thus make money out of it.
FAQs:
How much is the fee for registration of trademark in India?
The government fees for trademark registration is Rs. 9000 per application per class for the company. The government fees for trademark registration is Rs. 4500 per application per class for individuals.
Can I register for a trademark myself?
Yes, you can certainly do that but it’s best to appoint an attorney to help you with all the legal complications that you might face in the way to register your trademark.
How to check if a brand’s trademark is registered or not?
Go to the official site for Indian trademarks called http://ipindiaonline.gov.in and hop on to the trademarks tab and click on public search to find out if any brand is already trademarked under the same or a similar Intellectual property or not.
Can I trademark a name for free?
You can not register a trademark for free. However, you can establish something known as a “common law trademark” for free, simply by opening for business. The benefit of relying on common law trademark rights is that it’s free, and you don’t need to do any specific work filling out forms, etc.
Is trademark better than copyright?
Copyright protects original work, on the other hand a trademark protects items that distinguish or identify a particular business from another. Copyright is generated automatically upon the creation of original work, whereas a trademark is built through frequent use of a mark in the span of the business.
