India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has introduced two major changes on 13^th January with respect to trademark search and fees payable for trademark applications.

Speaking to Bar & Bench on the changes implemented to trademark registration in India, Biju Nambiar of Majmudar & Co said, “Effectively there are two changes. One change is the fee hike which was previously Rs. 2,500 for filing one trademark application in one class, now it’s going to be Rs. 3,500. This has been made to compensate the loss that may be incurred for making the trademark search free. The trademark search before this amendment was Rs. 500 for a single search and now that the search has been made free, anyone can access this trademark database from any part of the world”.

Biju Nambiar (pictured), Senior Consultant IP practice group at Majmudar & Co, International lawyers states the changes implemented to the trademark registration process in India. 

Increase in the official fees for registration

Biju Nambiar: The official fees for filing a trademark application in a single class has been increased from Rs. 2,500 (approximately $55) to Rs. 3,500 (approximately $78), with effect from December 29, 2010. Therefore, going forward, the official fees for filing a trademark registration application in a single class will be Rs. 3,500.

As regards trademark applications filed between December 29, 2010 and the public announcement of the Notice on January 13, 2011, an additional fee of Rs. 1,000 (approximately $22) will have to be paid on each trademark application. This additional fee must be paid on or before January 30, 2011.

Any delay in the payment of the additional fees beyond January 30, 2011 will impact the calculation of the filing date of the trademark application.

This implies that if the additional fee is paid after January 30, 2011, the Trademarks Registry will consider the filing date of the application only from the date of payment of the additional fees and not from the actual date of filing. The official fee for all other applications including oppositions remains unchanged until further notification.

Practice of official trade mark searches has been discontinued

Biju Nambiar: The Registry has discontinued the practice of conducting official trademark searches. Instead, the Registry has directed in the Notice that the proprietors can now conduct trademark searches on the Registry’s online database. The online database search is accessible free of cost.

There are several advantages of discontinuing this practice of official searches, such as, no costs involved in the searches, the searches will be easier and faster as the Registry took up to a couple of weeks to issue an official search report. Further, now India is at par with other countries having well-equipped online trademark search process. However, the primary object of a trademark search is to ascertain the existence of conflicting trademarks. In India, the official trademark search reports issued by the Registry act as a proof of the proprietor’s bona fides and due diligence prior to filing the trademark application.