TRADEMARK REGISTRATION PROCESS IN INDIA

This is a procedural/explanatory article on trademark registration in India, written from a media and entertainment law perspective. It opens with the legal framework, the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Trade Marks Rules, 2017, before turning to what can actually be registered in the entertainment space: production house names, channel/OTT brands, sound logos, film titles, and character names. It highlights the Supreme Court's ruling that copyright offers no protection for titles (the "Desi Boyz" dispute), leaving trademark law as the real avenue, illustrated by the "SHOLAY" case on acquired secondary meaning and a Bombay High Court ruling on when a character earns independent trademark protection. The bulk of the piece then walks through the registration process step by step: Clearance search and classification: searching the IP India database and classifying goods/services under the Nice Classification (45 classes), with media businesses often needing several classes at once (entertainment, broadcasting, software, merchandise). Filing: Form TM-A, priority claims under the Paris Convention, and fee concessions for individuals/start-ups. Examination: absolute grounds (Section 9) and relative grounds (Section 11) for refusal, applying the "average intelligence, imperfect recollection" test from Amritdhara and the Cadila Healthcare similarity factors. Publication and opposition: advertisement in the Trade Marks Journal and the opposition window/procedure. Registration, use, and renewal: the ten-year renewable term and the five-year non-use vulnerability, flagged as a particular risk for production houses that register titles defensively. It closes by addressing the well-known mark mechanism (Sections 11(6)–11(9), Rule 124) as a further protection relevant to major entertainment brands.