It is not unusual for a trademark practitioner who have practiced before other jurisdictions to notice that the percentage of objections issued by the Indian Trademark Office is extremely higher when compared to other trademark offices such as USPTO, IPO, IP Australia, EU.
Trademark Objection In India
We randomly picked a few monthly objection lists involving around 1000 applications from Classes 30 and 35 from 2013 and 2014 for a quick analysis.
Around 98% of the application are objected at first instance.
To our surprise, we discovered that about 98% of the trademark applications were objected at first. We also observe that almost same percentage of objections are posted for hearing, albeit a detailed, well-drafted and comprehensive persuasive response from the applicants and/or their representatives.
Most objections are posted for hearing despite a persuasive response
Many of the examination reports issued look like as though they were copied and pasted in a haste manner. We will discuss this more elaborately in our next blog.