Trademark public search in India

A trademark is a intellectual property consisting of recognizable sign, expression or design which identifies particular product or services from other. A trademark can be owned by a individual, business organization or  legal entity. A trademark can be located on package label or organization. Trademark is an intellectual property that is used to differentiate products and services of one firm or individual from others. Trademark public search is one of the most crucial steps before registering a trademark for your product or services.

For an entrepreneur, it is very important to find a brand for their product or services. You want to have a unique brand name for your product and service but, most of the time it is already taken. It is quite imperative to perform a trademark search for your brand name initially. A trademark is an unique identifier for a product or a firm. Owner of a trademark can pursue legal action for infringement of trademark.

Trademark protects your unique brand name from infringement and copying by other business. Trademark public search is a method to search for publicly available trademarks in case you are also protected from a future legal repercussion for using someone else’s brand name.

Trademark search benefits

A tm search would protect you from future legal tangles if you by mistake use someone else’s brand name. A business take many year of hard work to develop and a brand name has its own life. A company or product is usually remembered by its brand name. Brand name has its own intangible values in the mind of a consumer and every organization should make sure that trademark name chosen should be free of any future charges against it as it can diminish or eradicate value in a matter of few days.

Trademark public search

TM Search can be performed on official trademark registry available online. Any trademark which ever has been filed or registered online is available on given registry. The ipindiaonline interface allows three types of tm search on its portal. Trademark public search portal can be accessed on ipindia public search official webiste.

Three types of tm search available on trademark public search are –

1. Wordmark
2. Phonetic
3. Vienna code

Wordmark search

The wordmark search allows for retrieving trademarks which use the same word as that of the query entered. The trademark office website allows for a search query with three options:

a) Start with – This option provides trademark search results specific to word that start with given alphabet o group of alphabets. It is useful to enter a general word performing tm search with this option.

b) Contains – This option is one of the most useful tool while performing trademark public search as it tend to throw exhaustive list of results compared to “Start with” option. It is more comprehensive tool as it tend to show results that either contains, start with or exact match with given keyword. For e.g. if one goes ahead with contains option with keyword “Kart”, then he will get all words that contains a given keyword like “Kart” like Flipkart, book kart, kart company etc. But, choosing option that starts with “Kart” will throw only a limited set of words that start with “Kart”. Thus, it is recommended to use Contains option while performing tm public search for trademarks in India.

c) Match With – This option when used during ipindia public search will throw an exact match with a given keyword entered. For e.g. if an applicant interested in trademark registration enters a a keyword “Business” during his initial trademark search then portal will throw only a single trademark that has registered  his business with given keyword.

TM Search or trademark search is one of the most crucial steps in safeguarding a brand name that has been built with several years of efforts. It is always advisable to utilize contains option to fully utilize functionality provided with ipindia public search.

Phonetic search 

The phonetic trademark search is quite similar to Wordmark search interface provide above. It searches for similarly sounding words that are entered during search. It is very important to perform phonetic trademark search as well with wordmark search to increase the scope of trademark public search. 

Vienna Code search 

It is often seen that trademark search application also contains visual elements along with textual one. India is a member of Vienna convention and Vienna code is the governing code that governs figurative elements in a trademark.

Vienna classification is only utilized when a logo contains a visual element in a trademark application. An application is sent to Vienna codification to make a final decision. It is mandatory to perform Vienna code search while performing trademark search for trademarks that contain visual elements.

A brand name is built after years of effort and hard work. It is crucial to protect this brand name to utilize maximum benefits out of it. Trademarking a brand name is one of the most important steps in safeguarding  a brand name and trademark search is one of the most crucial steps in filing for a trademark. In this article, we have discussed various types of trademark search options available namely wordmark search, phonetic search and Vienna code search.

We would continue to write more informative articles related to trademark in India. Topics such as trademark search, trademark benefits, trademark registration, trademark classes etc. would be discussed in great details. Meanwhile, you can read more about informative articles on various trade licenses in India.

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Step by step guide for IPIndia trademark search Trademark public search in India FAQs – Part 2 Trademark search in India FAQs – Part 1 Trademark registration process in India Trademark status and Trademark registration FAQs