A Trademark plays an important role in promoting goods & provides information about the quality of the products. It enables the enterprise to acquire individual rights to utilize, distribute or assign a mark, which can be done through Trademark Registration. India is a huge competitive market for business and company owners, where there are vast numbers of new yet identical brands / products that keep emerging every-day. Protection of your brand becomes necessary to prevent anybody else taking the advantage of your name or brand.

What is a Trademark?

A trademark is a brand or logo that you can use to distinguish your product from those of your competitors. The term Trademark is the legal term for “intellectual property” (IP). The Trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image or a combination of these elements and identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service.

What is Trademark Registration?

Trademark Registration is a legal procedure provided under the Trade Marks Act, 1999. Through trademark registration, you can protect your brand or logo by restricting other people from using the same. By trademark registration, you get the ownership of the brand/name/logo. The trademark registration process in India is required if a company or individual intends to protect their logo from the misuse by the third party. Trademark registration will also provide an exclusive right to the owner to use it for its products or services. Trademark registration would provide a legal right to initiate an action against the third party in case of infringement of trademark.

Importance/Necessity of Trademark Registration:

• Valuable Assets: A registered trademark may prove to be a valuable assets for your business as these assets keep on appreciating over time. As your business grows over time, the value of the trademarks gets scaled up automatically. So, if your business grows, your trademark also grows in value.
• Protection to your Brand: A registered trademark establishes ownership over the brand, name or logo. It protects your brand from any unauthorized use of the third party. The registered trademark proves that the product totally belongs to you and you have exclusive rights to use, sell, and modify the brand or goods in whichever way or manner you would like.
• Provides Uniqueness to the brand: A brand that is unique & different must be registered, as every business needs a brand or logo that stands out and differentiates your brand from that of others. Hence, a registered trademark gives a unique identity to your brand.
• Easy communication tool: Trademarks may prove to be an effective and easy communication tool as they speak for themselves. A registered trademark can be easily identified which brand your product belongs to. For example, when you see a silver color half bitten apple on any device, be it a phone or laptop, you can easily identify that it is an Apple product.
• Easy for customers to find: A registered trademark makes it easy for the customers to find the product. It is an effective tool & unique in its identity, the trademarks that are registered can be easily traceable and customers may reach your product easily.
• Trademark is forever: The Trademark registered by any firm remains with them forever. The trademark registration shall be renewed after every 10 years. However, the identity that it gave to the brand remains forever.