Trademark Reply

Trademark Objection is the second stage of the Trademark Registration Process. All the Trademark applications will be examined by the Registrar of Trademarks. The trademark examination report is a report of examination conducted by Trademark Office after examining the registrability of the application, which includes distinctiveness, existing similarity with prior registrations, and filing of supporting documents. An opportunity is given to the applicant to explain how the said trademark fits the criteria to avail valid registration.

After the examination of the trademark application, the registrar will decide whether the application can be accepted or not. If not accepted, the registrar will mark the application as objected with specific reasons. The examination report will be communicated to the applicant/trademark agent for submitting a reply to the examination report.

• The applicant is required to file his reply 30 days from the examination report.
• If the reply to the examination report is found satisfactory, the Registrar shall proceed to accept the application and will advertise the same in Trademark Journal.
• Filing a Trademark objection reply is mandatory otherwise you shall lose the brand protection.
• An opportunity is given to the applicant to explain how the said trademark fits the criteria to avail valid registration.
• Once the Trademark objection reply is duly filed by the registered attorney, the reply will also be displayed on tracking the application status. Further, the alert “Pending for Reply” or “Awaiting Reply to Examination Report” will be removed from the application status 

Reasons for Objections

The following are the major reasons for marking the application as objected by the Registrar of Trademark:

• If the trademark does not have a distinctive character or is not capable of distinguishing the goods or services.
• If the trademark applied for registration is similar to the marks already registered/applied.