How to register a trademark or brand name in India?

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How to register a trademark or brand name in
India?

• Here in this blog, we have discussed about the
  procedures to register a trademark or brand name
  and also the benefits of trademark registration.

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to register a trademark or brand name in India
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• Chiefly, registering a trademark or service-mark
  or brand name, is termed as a Trademark
  registration. It is a way of establishing
  ownership and protecting the brand of a business
  or an entity. Early registration of trademark
  helps in eliminating any unnecessary legal
  problem that may arise in future.
  The trademark or service-mark acts as a
  source-identifiers for the reputation of brand
  name or business among those competitors.
  Therefore, to register trademark can consult a
  trademark attorney.
• Trademark is a unique symbol, a signature, name,
  label, number, or combination of colors used by a
  company to distinguish itself from companies with
  similar goods or services. Trademark
  registration helps in protecting the identity of
  the company and also establishing it.
   A Trademark is an important Intellectual
  property right. It identifies or distinguishes
  you from the others. Trademark is defined as any
  mark which is used in relation to goods for the
  purpose of indicating, or so as to indicate a
  connection between goods and some person who is
  having the right as proprietor to use that mark.

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Register a trademark- Benefits

• Once a trademark has been granted, the owner
  receives three key benefits
• A notice can be issued to any other businesses
  thinking of using the same symbol or word as its
  trademark
• A legal presumption of ownership, which can help
  fend off would-be users
• The exclusive right to use the claimed trademark

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Benefits of Trademark registration

• After trademark registration, you will become the
  legal owner of the registered trademark. As a
  result, no other person can use your trademark
  without your permission. If you have not
  registered the trademark, you cannot take any
  legal action against any other company or person
  who is using it.
• A trademark helps in building a good reputation
  among the customers. With the help of trademark,
  customers do not face problems while searching
  for your product.
• The biggest benefit of registering a trademark is
  that the companys name and brand are safe and no
  one can else use it. In case somebody violates it
  and uses the companys name, a legal procedure
  can be taken against them.

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Reasons to Register a Trademark

• The following are the reasons for a trademark
  registration
• Legal Protection Only registered owners can take
  legal action against damages caused due to
  trademark infringement. The protection is not
  given to unregistered business or entity.
• Unique Identity It provides a unique identity to
  your products which will help the customers in
  identifying your products among similar goods and
  services.
• Goodwill The trademark can be used to create
  trust and goodwill in the minds of the end users
  that your business is unique. Also, a registered
  trademark shows that you care about your
  companys name and brand.
• Creation of Asset Trademark registration creates
  an intellectual property, it is an intangible
  assets. You can sell this right or give
  franchisees.

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Signs of a Trademark

• The following symbols are used as the trademark
  symbols for the production of the products
• TM Using the trademark symbol after a logo or
  phrase that alerts competitors that you have
  claimed this symbol or phrase as your own product
  symbol.
• R Only trademarks that have been officially
  granted by the Trademark office can use the R
  symbol, which stands for registered trademark.
• SM Companies that sell services only, but not
  products, have the option to use the service mark
  logo, but most use the TM to represent their
  simplicity.

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Selecting a good trademark

• A trademark must be chosen carefully. If you are
  launching a product and adopting a new trademark,
  please bear in mind that the scope of legal
  protection offer to your product would be depend
  on the type of trademark chosen.
•  The most common mistake people will do is
  choosing a word that is descriptive of the goods
  or services. Business people will the belief that
  the consumer will know straight away what the
  product is or the service rendered. The same
  consequences can easily be obtained by combining
  a distinctive and fanciful trademark with a word
  which indicates the goods or services. E.g. Kodak
  film.

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• Descriptive trademarks are difficult to register
  and enforce. Although, it may be easier to market
  such products at the beginning, such trademarks
  are offered the least amount of protection and
  therefore, in the future, it is not possible to
  stop your competitors from using the same or
  similar trademarks.
• The better idea will be adopting a coined word,
  which has no reference to the goods or services
  upon which it is used. E.g. Nikon .Another option
  is to adopt an arbitrary word to register
  for trademark, which has no significance to the
  goods or services upon which it is used. E.g.
  Thomas computers Lilly software .The more unique
  a trademark is, the broader will be the available
  scope of protection.

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Difference between Copyrights and trademark

• The copyright registration can be applied to
  protect works of authorship such as songs, music,
  sound recordings, photos, images and other
  written works, books, manuscripts etc.,
•  The main purpose to register trademark is to
  protect words, phrases and logos used in the
  federally regulated commerce to identify the
  source of goods or services.
• Consequently, both trademark and copyright are
  desired with respect to the same business
  enterprises. For instance, a marketing company
  introduces a new slogan for using it with the
  product, which also appears in the advertisements
  for the products. However, copyright and
  trademark protection will cover different things.

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• The advertisements text and graphics, as
  published in a particular vehicle, will be
  covered by copyright but this will not protect
  the slogan as such. The slogan will be protected
  by trademark law, but this will not cover the
  rest of the advertisement. If you need both forms
  of protection, then you should perform both types
  of registration.
• If you want to protect a title, slogan, or other
  short word phrase, you should get
  trademark. Copyright law does not protect any
  bare phrase, slogan or trade name.

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Protection of Trademark

• Moreover, an image can be protected
  by trademark or copyright law depends upon its
  intention to identify the source of goods or
  services. If an image is used temporarily in an
  advertisement campaign, then it cannot be
  protected using use logo.
• The registration process of copyright and
  trademark are completely different. The filing
  fee of copyright registration is small and the
  time to obtain registration is relatively short. 
  The examination by the Copyright Office is
  limited to ensuring that the registration
  application is properly completed and suitable
  copies are attached.
• For trademark, the filing fee is more substantial
  and the time to obtain registration is much
  longer. The examination by the Trademark Office
  includes a practical review of examining marks
  which are found to be confusingly similar. While
  copyright registration is generally an
  administrative process, trademark registration is
  very much an adversarial process.

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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PATENT AND A TRADEMARK
Patent registration prevent others from making
or selling an invention, but trademarks protect
the words, phrases, symbols, logos, or other
devices used to identify the source of goods or
services from usage by other competitors.
Trademarks gives an owner exclusive use of
certain images or phrases, and the right to
prevent others from using a similar mark, which
would confuse consumers about who was producing
the goods or services the consumer was
buying. Typically, overlap does not occur, but in
some cases, when a design patent protects the
ornamental design of the product and the design
is also used as an identifying symbol, both
trademark and patent protection may apply.
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Steps for trademark registration

• 1. TRADEMARK SEARCH
• The first step is to carry out research to know
  whether a particular trademark is available to be
  used as per the criteria for registrable
  trademarks under the laws of the government.
• This step is necessary to ensure that there is no
  other trademark similar to yours so that
  registration can be obtained without any delay.
• 2. FILING THE TRADEMARK
• Once it is clear that the proposed trademark does
  not match any other trademarks, the next step is
  to file the trademark application at the
  trademark office. A trademark application can be
  filed for more than 1 class of goods.
• 3. TRADEMARK EXAMINATION
• After the filing is done, the trademarks registry
  will examine the trademark to ensure it meets all
  the requirements for registration in India. The
  process of examination takes place 8-10 months
  after the application is filed, but a quick
  examination can be requested by paying extra
  fees.

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• 4. PUBLICATION
• If the registrar has any objection to register or
  wants certain conditions to be fulfilled, a
  response from the application is expected, after
  the applicant files the response, if it is
  accepted, the process moves ahead
  to trademark publication.
• If the response is not accepted, a hearing for
  the same can be requested. The registrar may
  allow or reject the registration at the hearing.
  If it is allowed, the trademark publication in
  the trademark journal process will move ahead.
• 5. OPPOSITION
• When the trademark is included in the trademark
  journal, a third-party like the owner of an
  earlier trademark application or
  registration with a similar trademark for similar
  goods or a person who has used the
  same trademark before but has not registered for
  trademark can oppose the registration within 3
  months from the date when the trademark journal
  is made available to the public

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• 6. TRADEMARK REGISTRATION
• If no oppositions arise within 4 months from the
  date when the trademark journal was made
  available to the public, then the trademark
  registration certificate will be issued. The
  registered trademark is valid for 10 years and
  can be renewed for another 10 years with some
  fees paid to the government

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Requirements of Trademark registration

• To register a trademark the following documents
  are required
• Name of the Applicant individual/company/proprie
  torship firm/trust/partnership filing the
  application. In case of joint applicants/partnersh
  ip details of all the applicants/ partners.
• Address of Applicants who is filing the
  application.
• Nature of the entity filing the application, it
  may be an individual/proprietor/partnership firm/
  company/ HUF/ LLC.
• Type of products or services for which the mark
  is used.
• Nature and the type of your business such as
  Manufacturer/ Trader/ Service provider.
• If the mark is already in use, then the date
  since when the appropriate mark has been in used
  in India.
• Date of the first commercial use of the certain
  mark anywhere in the world.
• A copy of the mark or logo, preferably soft copy
  for which trademark is sought.
• A signed Power of Attorney (Form TM-48) on Stamp
  Paper in favour of the Trademark Agent or
  Advocate.