Proposed Amendments to Indian Trademark Law

The Ministry Commerce and Industry has on 19^th November, 2015 issued the draft Trademark (Amendment) Rules, 2015 proposing amendments to the Trade Marks Rules, 2002. The highlights of the proposed amendments are –

1. 100% hike in official filing fee: Filing of a trademark application would now cost double to an applicant after such amendment is in place. In order to promote e-filing,   streamlining & reducing the work load of the trademark office, the Government has proposed to add 10% additional fee on the official fee for the applications filed physically with the trademark registry. Some of the important changes in the current official fees are as below:
   

   Sr. No.	Fee Payable For	Current Fee (INR)	Fee after Amendment (INR)
   			E-Filing	Physical Filing
   1.	Application for registering a trademark in one class	4000	8000	8800
   2.	On counter-statement in answer to a notice of opposition	1000	2000	2200
   3.	For renewal of registration of trademark in one class	5000	10000	11000
   4.	For renewal of registration of trademark when the trademark is not renewed within time	3000	6000	6600
   5.	For restoration of trademark within 1 year from the expiry date	5000	10000	11000
   6.	Application for assignment of trademark within 6 month of assignment	5000	10000	11000
   7.	Application for assignment of trademark within one year of assignment	7000	15000	16500
   8.	Application for assignment of trademark after one year of assignment	10000	20000	22000
   9.	Application requesting expedited examination of the application	20000	40000	44000
   10.	Application requesting inclusion of a mark in the list of well-known trademark		100000	110000

    

2. Reduction in number of forms: The number of forms used for filings various applications have been reduced from 75 to 8 forms in totality.
3. Registration of sound mark: A sound file in MP-3 format not exceeding thirty seconds along with graphical representation of its notation would be required to be submitted with the application.
4. Statement of user in applications: If the use of trademark is claimed prior to the date of application, the applicant would now require filing an affidavit testifying to such use along with supporting documents at the time of filing of application.
5. Expedited Examination of application: Expeditious processing of the application i.e. scheduling of show cause hearing, if required, the publication of the application and opposition thereto, if any, till final disposal of the application all to be dealt expeditiously.
6. Well Known Trademarks: The amendment gives discretionary power to Registrar to decide the criteria for inclusion of a mark in the list of well-known trademark & also empowers the Registrar to remove the trademark from the list if it is found that a trademark has been erroneously included in the list. However, the official fee required to be paid by the applicant for such inclusion of a mark in the list of well-known trademark is INR 100000 (One Lakh Indian Rupees).