How to register a trademark or brand name in India
                     Here in this blog, we have 
HOW TO REGISTER A TRADEMARK discussed about the procedures to register a 
OR BRAND NAME IN INDIA? trademark or brand name 
and also the benefits of 
trademark registration.
TO REGISTER A TRADEMARK OR BRAND 
NAME IN INDIA
 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.
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
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 company’s name and brand are safe and 
no one can else use it. In case somebody violates 
it and uses the company’s name, a legal 
procedure can be taken against them.
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 company’s 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.
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.
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.
 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.
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.
 The advertisement’s 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.
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.
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.
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.
 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
 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
REQUIREMENTS OF 
TRADEMARK REGISTRATION:
 To register a trademark the following documents are required:
Name of the Applicant – individual/company/proprietorship firm/trust/partnership filing the application. 
In case of joint applicants/partnership 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.