How to Monitor and Protect Your Trademark in India

Why It’s Important to Protect Your Trademark

Trademark proprietors are in charge of ensuring their trademarks against unapproved utilize. The Indian Patent and Trademark Office registers trademarks, however, it doesn’t uphold them.

There are a few reasons why you should find a way to secure your trademark:

In the event that a contender utilizes your trademark without your consent, you could lose business to the contender.

Your notoriety could endure if a contender utilizes your trademark to offer second-rate merchandise or administrations, has poor client benefit, or is associated with sketchy or illicit exercises.

You could lose your trademark search on the off chance that you don’t police its utilization. Cases of some time ago substantial trademarks that have been pronounced non-specific since they turned out to be generally used to portray a kind of item incorporate "ibuprofen," "cellophane" and "bottle."

Observing Your Trademark

One approach to screen a trademark is to check the IP India filings frequently to check whether anybody has documented an application to register a trademark that is like yours. Since this procedure can be both tedious and simple for entrepreneurs to disregard, numerous organizations buy into an administration that screens trademark filings for them.

What to Do If Someone Else Is Using Your Trademark

Restricting a Trademark Registration Application

On the off chance that you discover that somebody is attempting to register a trademark that is confusingly like yours, you can contradict the registration.

Any individual who trusts they might be harmed by registration of a trademark can document a resistance to registration. The resistance must be documented within 30 days of the date the proposed registration is distributed in the Official Gazette.

In the event that you document a restriction, it will be chosen by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in a procedure that is like a court case. You might need to contact an attorney to record your resistance and speak to you in the procedure.

Halting an Infringer

Not every person who utilizes a comparable trademark will attempt to register it, and somebody may keep utilizing a comparable check regardless of whether their registration application is cannot.

In the event that you trust that somebody is utilizing a trademark that is indistinguishable or confusingly like yours, you might need to counsel an attorney for guidance on whether the utilization encroaches your trademark and how best to continue.

Normally, the initial phase in halting trademark encroachment is to send a "cut it out" letter. This letter informs infringers that you have a registered trademark, depicts the trademark and states how you trust the other party is encroaching on your trademark. The letter at that point asks the infringer to instantly quit utilizing your trademark and debilitates legitimate activity in the event that they keep on using it.

In the event that a cut it out a letter does not work, you should choose whether to document a claim to uphold your trademark rights. This is a mind-boggling choice that ought to be made with the guidance of an attorney. The choice may rely upon such factors as the cost of a potential claim, the harm you will endure in the event that another person utilizes your trademark and the probability that you will win.

Pankaj Singh Bisht is a legal author writing on company law and company copyrights