Years of hard work go into making customers recognise your name. Without a registered trademark, someone else can open a shop with the same name down the road — or register it before you and send you a legal notice. A trademark is the only thing that gives you exclusive rights to your brand.
A common misunderstanding: registering a company or a GSTIN in a name does not give you rights over that name as a brand. Only trademark registration does.
What a trademark protects
A trademark can be a word (your business or product name), a logo, a tagline, or a combination of these. In some cases even a shape, a sound or a colour combination can be registered. The mark is registered for specific goods or services, so the same word can belong to different owners in unrelated businesses.
Search before you file
Before filing, search the public trademark register for identical and similar marks in your class. Similar doesn’t only mean spelt the same — marks that sound alike or look alike can be refused too. A proper search at the start saves months of objections later, and sometimes the cost of rebranding a business that has already printed its boards and packaging.
Choosing the right class
Goods and services are divided into 45 classes: classes 1 to 34 cover goods and 35 to 45 cover services. A few examples:
- Class 25 — clothing, footwear and headwear.
- Class 30 — tea, coffee, spices, sweets and bakery products.
- Class 35 — retail and wholesale trade, advertising and business services.
- Class 43 — restaurants, cafés and catering.
Each class needs its own application and fee, so pick the classes that match what you actually sell today and plan to sell soon.
The registration process
- Search the register for conflicting marks.
- File the application (Form TM-A) online. From this day you can use the ™ symbol, and your filing date protects your claim.
- Examination — the Trade Marks Registry examines the application and issues a report, which may raise objections.
- Reply to any objection within one month of the report, with arguments and evidence of use. A hearing may follow.
- Publication — once accepted, the mark is advertised in the Trade Marks Journal, and anyone can oppose it within four months.
- Registration — if there is no opposition, or you win it, the registration certificate is issued and you can use the ® symbol.
Without objections or opposition, the whole process often takes around a year; contested applications take longer.
What it costs
The official fee for online filing is ₹4,500 per class for individuals, startups and small enterprises registered under Udyam, and ₹9,000 per class for everyone else. Professional fees for search, filing and replies are extra.
™ or ®?
Use ™ as soon as you have applied — it tells the world you claim the mark. Use ® only after the mark is actually registered: using it earlier is misrepresenting an unregistered mark as registered, which is an offence under trademark law.
Validity and renewal
A registered trademark is valid for 10 years from the date of application and can be renewed every 10 years, indefinitely. Renew on time — a lapsed mark can be removed from the register, and getting it back is slow and expensive.
Our team handles trademark search, registration, objection replies and renewals — so the name you are building stays yours.
This article is general guidance based on the rules in force on its publish date, not professional advice for your specific case. Tax and company rules change often — check your situation with us before you act.
