IP & Business
Trademark Registration & Trademark Attorneys in India
Building a brand is a valuable asset, and protecting it is what a trademark is for. We file over a thousand trademark applications a year for start-ups, established businesses and multinational corporations, and represent clients across the major filing cities under Indian trade mark law.
The ground
What you are actually dealing with
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a sign that distinguishes one trader's goods or services from another's. Under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 that can be a word, a name, a device, a label, a numeral, a shape of goods, packaging, or a combination of colours: anything capable of being represented graphically and of telling a buyer where the product came from. Registration is not what creates the right; use does. What registration gives you is the ability to prove it quickly and enforce it cheaply.
Why registration matters?
Without registration, protecting your brand means suing someone for copying an unregistered brand from scratch, a costly and difficult process where you must prove your reputation and damages every single time. A registered mark shifts the power to you: the certificate provides immediate legal proof of ownership. It makes your brand a tangible asset that lasts for ten years, can be renewed indefinitely, and can be licensed, assigned, franchised, or pledged.
Before you file
Most trademark objections are avoidable if caught early. We conduct comprehensive availability searches across the Registry database, corporate registers, domain records, and the open market. Filing without this search is the most common reason applications fail at examination.
Our part
How we work on marks
Trademark work rewards judgement more than volume. The decisions that matter are made early: how wide to draw the specification, which classes to claim, whether to argue a cited mark or to negotiate around it, and when an opposition is worth defending rather than settling. Those calls are made here by attorneys who will also be the ones arguing them.
- 01
Applications are drafted to a specification that matches the business as it will be, not only as it is today.
- 02
Examination reports are answered with a legal argument, not a form reply.
- 03
Oppositions and cancellations are run in-house, by the same people who filed.
- 04
Foreign filings are coordinated through associates we have worked with for years, on a single strategy rather than country by country.
Scope
What this engagement covers
- Availability searches across the Registry, corporate registers and the market
- Application drafting, classification and filing, including series and multi-class
- Examination reports, hearings and written submissions
- Opposition, rectification and cancellation proceedings
- Renewals, assignments, licensing and recordal of changes
- Madrid Protocol and national-route filings abroad
How it runs
The process, stage by stage
No stage carries a promised date. The Registry's queue and the court's list are not ours to commit on your behalf. What we commit to is doing our part of each stage without delay.
- 01
Search and advise
Availability search across the Registry, corporate registers and the market, followed by a written view on registrability and the classes worth claiming.
- 02
Draft and file
The specification is drafted to cover the business as it will be, and the application filed electronically with the Registry.
- 03
Examination
The Registry issues an examination report. Objections under sections 9 and 11 are answered with evidence and argument, and a hearing attended where one is fixed.
- 04
Advertisement and opposition
Once accepted, the mark is advertised in the Trade Marks Journal. Any opposition is defended through pleadings, evidence and hearing.
- 05
Registration and upkeep
The certificate issues and the mark runs for ten years. We diarise renewal and record assignments, licences and changes as they happen.
- 06
Trademark Litigation & Enforcement
We advise and represent trademark owners in disputes involving infringement, passing off, conflicting marks, opposition, cancellation and other enforcement matters.
Where you are
Trademark services in detail
Each of these is a page of its own, because the answer changes with where you are filing and what you are filing about.
Trademark Registration in Ahmedabad
Filing and prosecution for Gujarat businesses, at the Registry branch that examines them.
Trademark Registration in Surat
Brand protection for Surat's textile, diamond and manufacturing businesses.
Trademark Registration in Jaipur
Brand protection for Rajasthan businesses, from a firm with an office in the state.
Common questions
Questions we are asked most often
No. Rights arise from use, and an unregistered mark can be protected by a passing-off action. Registration makes the right far easier and cheaper to enforce, because you no longer have to prove reputation from first principles each time.