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The Government of India on 6th March has published “The Trade Mark Rules, 2017” (new TM Rules) vide its notification dated March 6th, 2017 replacing the existing “Trade Mark Rules 2002” to expedite and simplify the process of trademark registration in India. The new rules give a lot of leverage and implied support to the “Start-Up regime” promoting the “Digital India" campaign on the other hand as well.

The Office of the Controller General Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM), India had earlier issued Trade Marks (Amendment Rules) 2015 on November 19, 2015 which are now in force with immediate effect from March 06, 2017.

However, before introducing the new TM Rules, there have been many other considerable and remarkable accomplishments by the TM Office in the recent past. It is noteworthy to mention that after the digitalization of Indian TM Office, Transparent trademark database is available at the TM Office website, trademark applications are getting processed  at a much faster rate, Examination Reports are being issued in 1-2 months (instead of 12-18 months) and Registration Certificates are being issued electronically as well.

Highlights of The Trade Mark Rules, 2017 are as under:

• Sound-Mark: Under the new TM Rule, application for “Sound-Mark” can now be filed in India on Form TM-A accompanied with sound file in MP3 format with the condition of not exceeding 30 seconds  along with the graphical representation of its notation.
 
• Official Fees Hike: Another key change under the new TM Rules is the drastic increase in official fee. However, it is interesting to note that that there is a difference of around 50% in official fee structure for an Individual/Start-Up/SME/MME and for others. It will be interesting to see how this aspect plays out. The revised official costs for certain items have been mentioned below: