What is the Process of Brand Registration in India?

The Internet has made it easier for everyone to connect around the world and it has also opened up various new markets for businesses. Now business is not restricted by geography and can be easily accessed through new markets around the world.

This Rapid growth of businesses into new markets along with the increase in cost of advertisement has made it necessary to protect the brand name. In this blog, we will go through the process for brand registration in order to protect the brand name in India.

Brand Registration

A brand could be anything: a business name, a product name, a domain name, a slogan, a logo, a term, a design or any other feature which helps in distinguishing a product or a service from any other. Nowadays branding is quite essential for all those businesses which are involved in manufacturing of products and providing of services.

There are various processes for brand registration like domain registration, business name registration, Trademark registration and copyright registration. These processes have been discussed in the blog.

Domain registration

The first step of branding is domain registration because more and more people search for a business, product or a service online. The online presence of a business has become quite necessary for all the businesses and is very important to find and acquire the desired domain name for the business which is relatable to the brand name. This is the first step in the protection of brand name and brand registration. This is because it is cheap, efficient and fast.

Hence, it is important to register the domain name at first. It is also possible that some of the most popular domain names such as .com and .in are already in use, so the businesses may have to adjust with a domain name which ends with either .in or .co.in or some other similar extensions. The availability of a domain name can be checked through Google domains or goodaddy.com.

Business registration

For those startups who are setting up a new business, the process of brand registration starts by selecting the name of the business. The business name is a legal name which will be mentioned on tax registration, legal documents, employment contracts and the bank account of the business and many other documents. The name of the business doesn't necessarily need to match the brand name or the website of the business.

However, it is preferable to have a business name, a brand name and a domain name that are similar to each other.

Once the entrepreneur has decided the brand name he can use the LLP name check facility or the Ministry of Corporate Affairs company in order to search for available names. It is also important to know that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs does not give approval to any business names which are either identical or similar to the business name of some existing company or an LLP or a trademark.

Trademark registration

The sole registration that can ensure the absolute protection of a brand name is Trademark registration. A Trademark can be used to protect either the business name, the brand name, the logo, the slogan, the design or any other feature of a business. Hence, the businesses which are planning to invest in branding or promoting a brand must acquire a Trademark registration.

The trademark registration application needs to be filed for one or more of the classes of Trademark which are related to the goods or services which will be sold by a particular business. Once the registration application has been filed with the trademark registrar, the TM symbol will be placed next to the trademark.. But, the process of trademark registration is quite long and slow and may take more than a year.

Hence, it is necessary to file the trademark registration application as soon as possible and it should be tracked until the trademark has been registered. Once the process of Trademark registration has been completed, the ® symbol will be placed next to the brand in order to notify others that the brand is already a trademark which is registered with the Indian government. One of the most important parts of the process of brand registration in India is Trademark registration.

Copyright registration

Copyright registration and protection is needed for musical, artistic, literary and dramatic works and for cinematography films and sound recordings. If brands have unique logos with artistic characteristics, then such logos can be copyrighted in order to acquire additional brand protection under the laws. The logos which are quite simple and do not possess any artistic characteristics do not need to be copyrighted.

An example of a copyrighted logo is the logo of the Starbucks Coffee which is unique in nature and possesses artistic characteristics. The copyright registration application for a logo needs to be made to the copyright office in the specified format. The registration process for a copyright is usually faster than the process of registration for a trademark hence businesses can easily apply for a copyright registration and obtain it fastly.

Conclusion

In this blog, we discussed in detail the process for brand registration in India. We also learnt about domain registration, business registration, trademark registration and copyright registration.