Trademark Registration

Trademarks are special unique signs that are used to identify goods or services from a certain company. They can be designs, pictures, signs or even expressions. It is important because it differentiates your products from the competitions. It can be associated with your brand or product. Trademarks are classified as intellectual property and therefore is protected from infringement. Trademarks and its rights are protected by the Trademark Act, 1999.

The purpose of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 is trademarks registrations in the country and ensure protection to the registered trademark for goods and services. This also helps original trademark owners to prevent fraudulent use of their trademark. A trademark exclusively identifies a product as belonging to a specific company and recognizes the company’s ownership of the brand.

• Trademarks may or may not be registered and are denoted by the ® and ™ symbols respectively.
• Although trademarks do not expire, the owner must make regular use of it in order to receive the protections associated with them.
• Provides legal protection for your brand.
• Helps you guard against counterfeiting and fraud.
• Trademark registration creates an asset for a business enterprise.
• A trademark registration decreases the likelihood of another party claiming that your trademark infringes upon their trademark.
• Customers attach the product’s quality with the brand name and this image is created in the market about the quality of a particular brand.

Using a trademark prevents others from using a company or individual’s products or services without their permission. They also prohibit any marks that have a likelihood of confusion with an existing one. This means that a business cannot use a symbol or brand name if it looks or sounds similar, or has a similar meaning to one that’s already registered. Once you register the trademark you have to just pay the maintenance cost and renewal cost which is after 10 years of registering the trademark.

Once you have received the confirmation of the filing of the application you will get an allotment number. You can check the progress of the application online with this allotment number.