India's Trademarks Registry

[Ceres]

Have you ever wanted to check if there's a registered trademark in India for a domain name you're interested in? To carry out an online search of India's trademark records, you currently have to pay a fee of Rs. 400 per search. The search lasts 15 minutes.
Update: found a free but limited online search of India's trademark register.
Update #2: this service is no longer free. You pay US$5 for 5 searches.

I'm surprised TMR India charges you for such information. A lot of countries allow you to access such information for free, eg: UK Intellectual Property Office, USPTO, Canadian Trade-marks Database. Has anyone actually searched the register at TMR India before?

I think charging for this information means less domainers will check to see if a particular domain is infringing on a registered trademark. So one day we might get a nasty surprise and find out that we've unintentionally been infringing on a trademark….

Do you think it's important that we access such information, or is there enough information from other sources to determine if we have a potential trademark problem?

 

[abhishekjha]

indian trademark has a flaw.
any indian trademark owner cannot sue an already registered .in and .co.in domain domain name owner even if they are using the indian trademarked domain so just chill as there is no rule that they will get the .in and .co.in domain if they get the indian trademark beforehand.
so if suppose jeff registers blog.in and i get a trademark of the company called blog in india, then i will not be able to win back blog.in from jeff.
indian laws have many loop holes, so it doesnt do any good!

as far as the Rs.400 is concerned, let me tell you that the babus there will take the money and manually check the trademark and reply back in some weeks time xD, they do not have any online listing of trademarks yet! so its manual process and costs money! and the money too would be paid manually, it cannot be paid via paypal or creditcard xD

 

[Jeff]

Stuck the thread as this is important info.

 

[Ceres]

indian trademark has a flaw.
any indian trademark owner cannot sue an already registered .in and .co.in domain domain name owner even if they are using the indian trademarked domain so just chill as there is no rule that they will get the .in and .co.in domain if they get the indian trademark beforehand.

Hi abhishekjha, I was actually talking about the reverse situation - i.e. registering a domain after a trademark has been registered. The point I was trying to make is that we need easy access to the trademarks register to carry out searches.

In any event, I'd actually be very interested to learn more about the info you did talk about - can you point me in the right direction please?

they do not have any online listing of trademarks yet!

Perhaps this has changed? Yesterday, when I checked Public Search section of TMR website, it gave you the option to do an online search - they even have a test display of the Register. Note Public Searches can only be accessed on week days, therefore I can only double-check this point on Monday.

Thanks for your info.

 

[skyshipper]

Yes indeed ,there has been some effort,.
registry indeed provides these services,there are around five registries in different regions in india -mumbai,delhi,kolkata,chennei,ahmedabad,..will try to talk to one of the office bearers,,but i suppose the jurisdiction of each is limited to certain areas,domains are a bit different since it is diffcult to control their reach!,its a tricky road,but i guess being in the clear is a lot of releif (and maybe some dough!)..nice thread..tc

 

[abhishekjha]

i know there is the policy to give priority to trademark owners in case somebody tries to make a second company with the same name to win it back
but for the trademark issue where the trademark exists and the domain is registered later on then it doesnt come under any indian penal code(Act/Law book) to issue .in or .co.in domains to their respective trademark owners from inregistry! though if we discuss further on this topic then a law could be made for it, just that we will need to issue a PIL for it and move the supreme court in india for this.
but if this rule is made then this would just make many big domainers and international .in domain owners to loose pretty good domains to indian trademark owners... no body will be spared xD so keep your .in domains locked as in present indian law, it doesnt matter if the duplicate company was made before or after another person got a trademark of it, what matters in indian law is that the person owning the trademark is the real owner and others will have to loose their company name, same will be the case with domain names too if this law is made. so dont think of starting a PIL for it else many domainers including you will loose their .in and .co.in's and later regret filing the PIL xD

PIL=PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION. New Indian Laws can be made if the PIL of any particular topic like trademark rights for .in owners is proved to be of advantage to indian public in the indian supreme court! PIL cannot be filed by any non-indian citizen FYI! and all indians as well as non-indians holding any indian property whether physical or virtual are bound to follow the new indian law if any one has file a PIL and it has been approved into a new law! and even the state or central government in india cannot help you go against the new law unless the new law is taken off the books of indian law! but such cases rarely happens and all PIL's which are approved stay in the books and people are bound to follow it!

i guess there is some mistake in the thread information itself which you gave, coz on one hand, you said it costs Rs.400 to check each trademark and on the other hand you said its listed online! im getting totally confused
lets wait for monday to see what happens! ..TC!

 

[Ceres]

Hi abhishekjha, thanks very much for the info. The reason I brought up this topic was to learn more about Indian trademarks and how they impact domainers. There's a legal principle which states ignorance of the law excuses no one!

on one hand, you said it costs Rs.400 to check each trademark and on the other hand you said its listed online! im getting totally confused

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Unless I'm mistaken, it costs Rs. 400 to access the online data.

 

[Ceres]

See: Guidelines for Public Search of Trade Marks on World Wide Web

Public Search can be accessed by visiting the home page of Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks (CGPDTM) at http://ipindia.nic.in or through https://www.ipindiaonline.gov.in/etmr/publicSearch/searchMain.aspx

The Public Search facility is on payment basis. This facility can be availed either by paying online through Net Banking Facility or by paying offline at respective Trade Marks Offices.

Online payments can be made by Net Banking available on the Registration Page by paying a fee of Rs. 400/- in INR.

The system will allot 15 minutes time to perform on-line search.

 

[indian]

Get your Indian trademark registered and search through .In registrar Mitsu, they will be great help.......and cost less then what you mentined above.

 

[RaghavK]

its going to take time for the Indian Trademark Law to cover up the entire domain industry implications..so be a little patient..I am sure that as and when they come across cases..they will make the necessary modifications..

 

[Ceres]

Excerpt from a great IP wish list of India:

11. Trademarks search is made available for free;

12. Logo search is made available for Trademark;

Source: SiNApSEa

Note: I'm simply talking about free access to the TM database (not free services by trademark agents).

It would be great if this IP wish list came true, eh?

 

[Ceres]

Update. A step in the right direction by India's trademark office! See Spicy IP's blog post about how the public can now access India's trademark register without charge.

Note: you still need some basic information such as trademark # or details of the trademark/proprietor/class. For example, you can search trademarks owned by Reliance that include the word "big" and which are covered by class 42, or you can search for marks owned by Nissan that include the word "Datsun" and which are covered by class 12.

 

[catchnames]

It seems one need to pay for trademark search. It's not free.Am I missing something?

 

[Ceres]

It seems one need to pay for trademark search. It's not free.Am I missing something?

If you require a full search of the TM register then yes you should definitely hire a TM agent to do this on your behalf. The agent will gain full access to the register and will be able to provide you with search report results.

What the Indian trademarks office has done is to make it a bit easier for the general public to look up certain TM information, without charge. Ideally, the public should also be able to search by "trademark" (like many other online TM registers)... hopefully one day!

 

[abhishekjha]

An announcement,
I just finished making alpha 2 version of my free cms called Jhakas, at Jhakas | 100% Free ASP.NET Based CMS!, then i started hunting for any trademark attorney to register my product's trademark, i got a person telling me that i would have to pay Rs.40k and it would take 1 year for the trademark to become valid.

Then i decided to release jhakas under GNU GPL2 instead and trademark it later ;-)

If its so tough getting a trademark for a free software then better do it later ;-)

Do you know anybody who can trademark the thing in lesser time?

 

[RW1]

informative & interesting post.good info to have & know.

 

[Dewlance]

Few year ago I register my Trademark, They register it and add lots of word like "Device" (Hosting company is not a Device)

Its take 1 year to get certificate but I learn how to search any trademark of online domain. You need to enter "42" number for online website.