The trademark manual is a compendium of the law and procedure to be followed by the trademark office for Registration of a Trademark, the examination of the trademark application, pre- and post-grant of the trademark registration. It aims to bring consistency of practice and uniformity.
Table of Content
The office of the Controller General of Patent Design & Trademarks issues Trademark Manual and updates the same from time to time. It is clarified that the Manual is for the guidance of the stakeholders such as the trademark applicant, attorney/agent, examiners of the trademark etc. The trademark manual is generally consistent with the law on trademark, however, in case of any variance of inconsistency the Trademarks Act or the rules framed under the Trademark Act shall prevail.
The Contents of The Manual of Trade Mark
- The manual prescribes the general guidelines on the filing of documents in the trademark offices in India, it’s digitalization, the time and manner in which the same need to be filed.
- Filing of trademark application: this section is a very important part of the manual as it deals with the filing of the application for the registration of the trademark in India. The list and specification of the documents to be attached with the application for registration of the trademark in India. The manual of trademark clearly specifies the requirement for various types of the applicant such as individual, joint owners, partnership firm/LLP, companies, government departments, quasi-governmental undertakings and the applications of trademark if applied as conventional application.
- Examination of Trademark: the examination of the trademark application is the next important step after the filing of the trademark application in the Indian trademark registry. this part of the manual deals with the office procedure followed while examining the trademark application.
- The other parts of the manual deals exhaustively with the departmental procedure concerning the post-examination disposal of application for trademark registration, the opposition & rectification proceedings at the tribunal, pre-registration amendments, the trademark renewal, assignment /transmission, the registered user of trademark and post-registration changes of the registered user