Trademark Registration Online Process in India

What is a trademark?

As the name suggests, trade signifies trading in the market and mark signifies symbol. So the trademark is the symbol of business which helps in establishing the brand in the market. It helps you in providing the identity in the market and generates goodwill that will flourish the business. Trademark can be a word, statement or device.

Benefits of Trademark  Trademark Registration Online in India

There are multiple benefits to why it is good to have a trademark for your company. Have a look at some of them below

• The trademark establishes your product in the market and helps gain attraction to your brand.

• Any business involves a lot of effort and hard work. Let’s say after two to three years, you are able to generate good leads and have a turnover in lakhs, others might try to copy your product.  If you are not trademark registered, other businesses can copy your product and if by any chance they register before you, the entire business will be in their hands and you will be in huge loss.
• Little effort of registration or the trademark can help in building a unique identity for your brand and people will get associated with it. No other similar brand can register with your logo and the investors will get more confidence in your company.

Importance of trademark Registration for startups

Trademark registration is beneficial for all whether startups or mid-sized businesses.

• It will highlight your business in the market

• No one can copy your business since you are a proprietary owner of it.

Thus, startups get significant help from trademark registration and get saved from any sort of ownership related thefts which can lead to significant losses for them.

What can be used as a Trademark Registration?

There are multiple things that can be made as a Trademark Registration:

• Name
• Symbol
• Device
• Logo
• Numerals
• Sound mark
• 3-d holograms

Documents required to Trademark Registration Process in India

• First of all, you should be aware of what you are planning to register as a trademark; whether it is a hologram or word or some statement or picture, etc. You should have a logo to get registered as the trademark

• You should be aware that your business is dealing with which class. This will be informed to you by the Startup Consulting Services in India you are associated with.

• You need to have the identity proof including Aadhar card, passport, pan card, etc.

You can do the Trademark Registration in India via the online site or visit the office and get the process done.

The time period for Trademark Registration

The minimum time required for the registration of the trademark is 1.5 to 2 years. If there are any obligations or oppositions in the process of registration, it might take some more time.

Steps to be followed for Trademark Registration in India

It is very crucial to follow all the necessary action steps to get your trademark registered successfully. Have a look at them below:

• Whenever you have an idea for the business and looking for trademark registration, identify the logo, image or name that you are planning to be your business trademark.

•  Once you are done with identification, check whether the logo or name is not already registered before by any other brand. You can check this with the trademark registrar.
• The next step is to prepare the documents and submit them to the department.
• Once your application is submitted, a unique VNR code is assigned by the department to it. For this time period, the status of your supplication is ‘sent for VNR codification’.
• The next step is to allocate your application to the trademark examiner. He will check the documents, verify them and if your application is submitted via attorney then power of attorney documents are verified. Once this is done, if the report issued is negative then again after correction you need to resubmit the documents. If the report is verified, the next step is followed.
• If everything goes fine, the trademark is sent for publishing in the trademark journal. Every week a general is published where the trademark is published publically. This is done so that if in public anyone has an objection to it, it can be looked upon. A total of 4 months is provided for the same. If the opposition comes, you need to provide the statement for the opposition.
• After completion of 4 months, if no public objection comes, the trademark is sent for registration and this is the final stage. Within 3 months, you get the certificate.

What are the good trademarks to be selected?

It is very crucial to choose the trademarks that can be easily registered and at the same time are powerful enough to attract the people. Your trademark should be easily readable, pronounceable and easy to remember. Customers should be easily able to speak that word or remember the picture in mind. This will help you in getting good positive branding and amazing leads as well.

The validity of Trademark Registration Process in India

Once the trademark is registered for your business, it holds a validity of ten years. You need to renew it every 10 years and you can do it lifelong without any other obligations and conditions.

Classes of trademark registration in India

The department has set up some classes for the trademark registrations. There is a total of 45 classes and your business will fall under one of these classes. So you need to get the registration done accordingly. If you are having multiple businesses that fall in different classes, you can apply separately for both the classes via multiple applications. Also, within the same application, you can apply for multiple classes and this is termed as a multi class trademark. This is also termed as the Class 99 trademark.

Process of international trademark

If you want to get your trademark registered internationally, it is done through the MADRID protocol. Below are the steps to be followed:

• Your trademark should be first nationally registered in the office of origin i.e. the home country.

• Next, you need to apply to your office of origin for the international trademark registration.
• Then the office of origin will apply for your international trademark registration based on your national trademark in the WIPO called world intellectual property organization.
• The same details will be applicable for the international application as the national trademark application.
• Once the application is sent to WIPO, it will send a notification to all the member countries of the MADRID Protocol in order to check that none of the countries have any objection to it. The time limit is between 18 months to 2 years. After that, your trademark will get registered internationally.

What is the significance of the formality check failed?

When your trademark registration application is going through certain stages, a stage comes where the trademark examiner verifies all the documents. In case, there is some discrepancy with your documents, the application comes under status as ‘formality check failed’. Then, you need to recheck your documents and send them again and once they are verified, the status changes to ‘formality check passed’.

What is the significance of opposition?

During the step of journal publication of trademark, if someone from the public has some concern with your trademark, it comes under the category of ‘opposed’. You need to submit a counter-statement regarding the same and if it is justified, the steps proceed further. In case there are still issues, a hearing will be done where both parties get a chance to put forward their justification.

Trademark/ copyright/ patent

All the terms trademark, copyright, and patent are different. Trademark provides you a monopoly on your company name. Copyright provides security to your though work or the artistic work you are doing so that no one else can copy it for their businesses. Patent means that you have invented something completely new and only you can use it.

Difference between R and TM

When you see any good in the market, there are two symbols at the right corner: R in a circle which means registered, and TM that means trademark. When you submit an application for trademark registration, so before the issuance of the certificate you use TM and once the certificate is issued, you will use the term R which means your trademark is now registered. Make sure that you do not use R before your trademark gets registered otherwise you will have to pay the penalty against it.

The process of trademark registration is very crucial for your business and taking guidance from India’s best startup consultant like Neusource, Startup Consultancy Services in India can help you in accomplishing the complete process easily and without any security concerns.

Akash Rai

"Any time is a good time to start a company.” Neusource indulge in providing business consultancy services which help startups to accomplish their desired results as a TAJ EXPRESS. If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then neusource is the right choice for you.