Advertisement Of Trademark Application

Advertisement of a trademark application before or after its acceptance by the Trademark Officer is an opportunity given to the public to oppose the

registration of the trademark - which is a necessary rule under the Trademark Act. When an application of a trademark has been accepted by the Registrar, the Registrar is required to advertise the approved application in the Trademark Journal. This article discusses the advertisement of the trademark application on the trademark journal in detail.

Trademark Journal

While processing a trademark application and before advertisement in the

trademark journal, the registrar decides if it has to be advertised before or after accepting the trademark. Some trademark applications can be advertised even before the Registrar receives it. In such cases, the trademark application status would be shown as "Advertised Before Acceptance" in a trademark search. Details published in the Trademark Journal:

• Class
• Application number
• Date of filing
• Names of all applicants
• Reproduction of the actual mark as it is applied for
• Registration of the goods and services depending on the category
• Conditions and limitations the application can be accepted
• Application numbers or trademark numbers to which the mark is associated
• The office where the application was filed

A sample extract from the Trademark Journal is reproduced below for reference:

Advertisement Before Acceptance

The Trademark Registrar is empowered to advertise an application even before it is accepted in certain cases. According to the Trade Mark manual, the provision for advertisement before acceptance, as the law itself enacts, should be invoked in “exceptional circumstances”. Where the Officer concerned finds strong evidence of bonafide commercial adoption and use of the mark. Hence, of all the trademark applications filed, only a very small number are published in the Trademark Journal before acceptance by the Trademark Department. In most cases, the trademark application is published in the Trademark Journal after the Registrar accepts it.

Publishing on the Internet

Trademark Journal is now published online on the IP India website. The Trade Mark Act has provisions to enable the trademark journals to be published on the internet or in any other electronic media. Any trademark advertised in the journal if it is put on the Internet or in paper form after the date of publication of trademark will be considered to have been advertised. The date in the journal is considered to be the date of publication for many purposes, most importantly to determine the period for filing the notice of

trademark opposition. Under the Trade Mark Act, after a mark is published in the trademark journal, the public has a period of 3 months to file a notice of opposition. Any person can file an opposition. The trademark registry also separately notifies the date on the internet when the public has received the advertisement for the purpose of opposition. The issues of the Trademark journals are also made available in CD-ROM, and the public can receive this by paying the required fee as mentioned in the Journal. This CD-ROM has the date on which the journal was made available to the public.

Defective Advertisement

The purpose of advertising a trademark in the journal is to provide complete information about the advertised trademark so that the public will get all the information about that particular trademark. When an advertisement fails to do this or gives incorrect information about the trademark, then the public has all the rights to file an effective opposition. This leads to cancellation of the advertisement and re-advertisement in the trademark journal would be required before granting a trademark registration certificate.