Pharmaceutical trademarks – how to know if a drug name is available or not?

Small Pharma Companies: How to know if a drug name is available or not? Pharma industry contributes more than any other sectors to the trademark industry by filing number of applications for trademark registration.  This is apparently backed up by the recent Annual Report 2012-2013 published by The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM). Trademarked vs Non-trademarked names Trademark is not necessarily a subject matter of first-to-file basis unlike patent applications.  Trademark can be aptly defined as a “mark” used in trade to distinguish one’s goods from others.  It makes more sense as to who adopts the marks early and how well the adopted mark is exploited in trade. This is typically the case in most of the oppositions....

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Indian Trademark Office gets 100% computerized, paperless, including RTI!

Sequel to the previous notifications, a third notification from CGPDTM today notified the release of online facility for all Trade Marks forms through comprehensive e-filing services of Trade Marks. Only a few days ago we wrote about the first and second notifications which incorporated up to 57 forms.  The third notification comes as a surprise today, although we noticed inclusion of some new features a couple of days ago. India is a signatory to TRIPS and as part of its TRIPS compliance, it is required to get its IP operations fully computerized and digitized. For most countries, July 2014 was the deadline for TRIPS compliance. Filing RTI through the system Most interesting fact is that this update includes a system to...

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Jibe sparks trademark application for “Namo Tea Party” in Class 45

Controversial Remarks The controversial remarks from opponent political parties over Mr. Narendra Modi's as a Prime Ministerial candidate seem to have worked a lot in Mr. Modi's favor.  While BJP is moving ahead with its chai pe charcha campaign to gather massive support from public for its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, some of his supporters went an extra mile by seeking trademark registration for 'NaMo Tea Party'. The 'Chai pe Charcha' (discussion over tea) campaign was first launched by BJP to counter a jibe made by a Congress leader at Narendra Modi (NaMo) for selling tea in his earlier years. Application for "NaMo Tea Party™" in Class 45 Mr. Shailesh Tiwari, based in Ahmedabad, who calls himself convener of 'Namo Tea...

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Another huge step into computerization – Indian Trademark Registry

We all know that Indian Trademark Office is religiously working into fully computerizing its day-to-day operations.  More recently in the first week of February 2014, i.e., on 05/02/14, a notification came as a surprise announcing that several TM forms would be accessible through e-filing platform and we also wrote on it Indian trademark registry goes 90% computerized. Another pleasant surprise came a few moments ago when our Indian Trademark Office published yet another notification on its site which read that a few other forms were added through the e-filing platform.  There are currently a total of 87 forms and currently as per the latest notification, a total of 57 forms were accessible through the e-filing platform. It is indeed a...

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TRADEMARK OBJECTION Vs OPPOSITION IN INDIA– EXPLAINED

It is a common misconception among the general public that trademark registration just begins and ends with filling up a form (TM-1) and submitting it before the trademark office.  Contrastingly, a trademark application goes through several stages before it is finally registered, and in some cases, even after registration, revocation or cancellation proceedings are initiated by third parties under several grounds. In other countries, objection and opposition are used interchangeably.  However, in India, they denote different type of proceedings.  Objection is instituted by trademark examiner and opposition, by a third-party. What is objection? Objection is a preliminary refusal issued by the trademark examiner after examination of your application.  Some common grounds for objection are a) lack of distinctiveness (Section 9)...

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E-filing services – Indian Trademark Registry gets 90% digitized

It has been quite some time since our Indian Patent and Trademark Office had launched its online e-filing platform.  Of note, the Copyright Board did also launch similar services in 2009, but it did not go well as planned and went completely dysfunctional in a few months of its launch. Most recently in November-December 2013, Indian Trademark Office introduced online facility for filing Madrid applications as well as filing reply to examination report.  What comes as a more pleasant news for stakeholders and public is that now our Trademark Office accepts the following forms through its E-filing platform: Renewal - TM-12, TM-10,  and T-23 Opposition - TM-5, TM-26, TM-6 and TM-7 Correction - TM-16 Legal Certificate - TM-46 and TM-70...

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