Trademarks play a fundamental role in India's distinct growth and development. It is essential for creating a brand identity that fosters consumers' trust. A trademark identifies a brand and can easily compete with the reputed brand if the product or service exceeds that much. Understanding the power of a trademark, most businesspeople or service providers are prone to applying for a trademark for their business. This article will describe to you “Why should I register trademark?” in detail.

Why Should I Register Trademark?

Before entering into the discussion, “Why should I register trademark?” you should learn some basic things about trademark registration. Let’s focus lightly on them, and then we’ll enter the facts. 

What is a trademark?

A trademark is a distinctive sign, symbol, mark, logo, slogan, sound, color, or combination of them that signifies the brand or business and its unique identity compared to other brands. It acts as a badge of origin, quality, gentility, and protection against the adulteration of products. Your brand will remain unique among the competitors, and you will be recognized in the market for your product and service quality. Your competition with the other reputed companies will be easy.

Classes of trademarks in India

Usually, trademarks have been classified into two segments: Goods and Services. There are 35 classes in the Indian portal of trademarks (IP India Portal). Among them, 1 to 34 classes are for goods, and 35 to 45 are dedicated to services. You will learn the details of the classes of your business from the portal itself or through this link: https://www.onlinelegalindia.com/blogs/trademark-classification-in-india

Types of trademarks in India

Trademarks are not limited to just brand names or logos. There are a wide range of identifications available. Each of them signifies a specific characteristic. Let’s learn some of them.

Wordmark:

A trademark is the mark of a company or business without any other things like a logo or character. Usually, you may notice some companies use their brand name written in specific styles of fonts. These are examples of wordmarks.

Device mark:

The device mark is usually expressed through the specific logo. These include the graphical presentation or stylized words.

Shape marks:

Shape marks are the marks of products or packaging which are uniquely presented to the users.

Sound Marks:

Some specific or distinctive sound, jingle, or musical tone is used to denote a company. If it is registered, it is called a sound mark. You can easily keep in mind the Airtel jingle or the power-on-time tone of the Nokia phone. These are the prime examples of sound marks.

Color Marks:

Some companies, brands, or service providers choose specific colors or a mixture of colors as their trademarks.

Pattern Marks:

While denoting any brand, some companies use some unique patterns. These patterns are the unique mark of the company and a protective shield for it.

Service marks:

Service marks have been used when you try to identify your services with a mark related to the services.

After getting registered, a trademark holder can use ® with the mark they have submitted for registration.

Why should I register trademark?

There are many reasons to register a trademark in India. Trademarks empower businesspeople to protect their brands legally from copying products as well as product infringement. Let’s learn the benefits of trademark registration in India.

1. Benefitting Exclusive Rights

A trademark registration gives its owner the supreme power to use it across its brands and comes under the umbrella of the class. Hence, trademark registration helps in branding and ensures the businessman that no one will be able to use it illegally. Nobody can copy the brand name or copy the products under the name of the brand. The business person will get legal protection.

2. Legal Protection for the Brand

A Registered trademark gets all types of legal protection according to the rules of the Government of India. If any competitor or greedy businessman copies your product and sticks your company’s trademark on their products, they will be severely punished according to the law if caught. So, a trademark safeguards your brand and its products or services.

3. Creates Unique Brand Identity

When you have been proceeding with establishing a brand name, you will always try to maintain the quality of your products or services. Hence, the brand name and the trademark or the product will be synonymous. Any customer purchases the product or services considering that the quality of the product would be always similar. Thus, a brand gains reputation and gains the stamina to grab the market share going against the well-established brands. Thus, customers build trust and loyalty to the company and the products.

4. Grabbing the position in the market

Customers are not more aware than ever. They always want genuine services from genuine companies. When they notice any trademark-registered company, they are prone to purchase goods or take services from them. Hence, the sales of the company will increase significantly. Being a startup company, it will start grabbing new markets and new positions in the market. It helps increase the market share of the new company, even in the tough competition. Customers easily change their purchasing decisions from a non-registered to a trademark-registered company.

5. Valuable Intellectual Asset

A Trademark is the intellectual property of a business owner, a valuable asset too. As the brand grows up and gets recognition in all directions, the trademark matters most. The people then purchase products by observing the trademark or logo of the company that denotes the brand. Thus, a registered trademark passively attracts a revenue stream. If your brand becomes reputed, you can easily spread your business branch or offer franchises to others, as the case may be.

6. Legal protection against fraud:

A registered trademark represents a brand and its product. There is nobody who can grab the brand, or its logo to copy its products. If infringement happens, the offenders will be punished according to the rules of Trademark Infringement. So, it reduces the risk of infringement of your brand mark or product.

7. International Trademark Registration

If you want to register your trademark internationally, you can do it from the IP India portal. But, you have to click on the WIPO option after logging in. WIPO is the contracted form of the World Intellectual Property Organization. However, this option is only essential when you want to expand the business internationally.

8. Consumer trust and loyalty

Consumers always want to get products from trusted and familiar brands. When making a second decision for purchasing, they choose the brand, which would be a trademark-registered company. So, a trademark always grabs the attention of the customers, as they trust the registered brands only.

9. Life-long Right: Till You Want

Every company that has a registered trademark will typically get its validity for as long as they want. Yes, it is true. The validity of trademark registration is 10 years. Before the expiration of the mark, the businessman can reapply for renewal. So, as long as you want to get the marks, you can do so through renewal services. Your trademark must be renewed within ten years after registration. Then, the right to your trademark will remain in your hand.

10. Attracts Investors

The companies that run on investors’ investment require attracting them. A trademark registration with the ® symbol will attract more investors. It is a primary reliable factor among the investors for a company.

How do I register a trademark?

Probably, you have learned, “Why should I register trademark?” Now, you will learn the procedure for registering a trademark in India. There are several steps and procedures to follow. Here are the vital steps that one should follow.

Step one:

At the very beginning, you have to select a trademark you like. If your trademark would be a logo or music, you have to make it ready before approaching the next step.

Step two:

Conduct a trademark search on the Online Legal India site. However, you can visit IP India for a trademark public search. (https://ipindiaservices.gov.in/tmrpublicsearch/frmmain.aspx). Then, you will get an idea of whether your selected trademark was previously taken or applied by anybody. The entire data will come out of what is stored in the IP India database. If you do not search in the portal and find something similar to any other trademark, your application may be rejected or objected to.

You have to solve all legal procedures concerning the situation. Hence, the trademark registration duration will be longer with a lot of hazards. So, you should approach trademark registration after conducting a public search on the portal.

Step three:

Hire legal Assistance. Registering a trademark is not a big deal. However, you have to follow some specific procedure to get it registered. Expert guidance is always expected to finalize a trademark and apply it successfully. The legal support will help you in solving all issues faced during the application, process ongoing, and trademark objection. If you want to hire any legal assistance, Online Legal India might be your best choice.

Step four:

Select the perfect class of goods or services.  You know goods are classified from 1 to 34 and services are classified from 35 to 45. If you cannot get the perfect class for your business, you can discuss the matter with legal assistance. They will do it according to your requirements. Select the class for the following government link (https://euipo.europa.eu/ec2/).

Prepare for filling out an application:

Step Five

• Fill out the form TM-A, in the prescribed format. However, you can apply for trademark registration through the online portal of IP India (https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/trademarkefiling/user/frmNewRegistration.aspx). Proceed on filling out the trademark registration. You can learn details of the trademark registration process by reading the links given here. (https://www.onlinelegalindia.com/blogs/how-to-register-trademark-in-india/)
• There you have to provide the following information:
• Inform your details
• Your personal business/ company information
• Upload the trademark that you want to register
• The description of the goods, products, or services of your business.

Step Six

Pay the fee online. You will get a specific option on the dashboard to pay the fee for the application you have done. The fee may vary between online or offline submission of forms.

Step Seven:

The trademark authority examines the entire details. If they find that there is no match with the trademark you submitted with anybody else’s, they approve it for yours.

If required they also send it for Vienna codification, and approval afterward. You will notice it from the trademark status check through ARN.

Step Eight:

The trademark authority then publishes it to Trademark Journal (https://search.ipindia.gov.in/IPOJournal/Journal/Trademark). Then, people can go for trademark Opposition or Objection (in three months) if their trademark seems to be similar to anybody else’s. You have to solve it legally. Your legal assistant will help you for all purposes. However, it may cost you a bit.

Trademark registration certificate

If no valid objection is raised, your trademark will be registered finally. You will get the trademark registration certificate and permission to use the mark with the ® symbol.

Trademark renewal

Every trademark can exist for an unlimited period of time. The validity of any trademark is 10 years. Within the validity period, you have to apply for renewal. After renewal, you will again get a validity of 10 years. In this way, you can increase the validity and keep your mark for an unlimited period. You have to apply for the renewal of the trademark before 6 months of expiry.

Trademark Renewal Process

Go online, sign in your profile, and fill out a form for the trademark renewal. For offline, you have to submit the form TM-R with prescribed fees.

Late Renewal

You will get a grace period of six months after the expiry. During these six months, you can also apply for renewal with a late fee. After six months, the fee increases highly for a particular duration.

Non-renewal effect of trademark

Failing to renew within the specific time or grace period, the trademark will be subject to deletion from the Trade Marks Registry. This will result in losing the brand protection, and the right may go to another person.

Conclusion:

By the end of the piece of writing, you learned, “Why Should I Register Trademark?” and how to register a trademark. Then, you learn how you can renew the trademark. You also learned the effect of trademark non-renewal cases. If you want to learn more, contact Online Legal India, the most trusted online platform for getting support for all these purposes.