The Indian Trade Marks Office (TMO), in the new fiscal year announced the abandonment of over 1,60,000 pending trade mark Applications. The Applications were said to be abandoned on account of non-filing of response to the Examination Reports that were served on the Applicants/ Agents on a later date or not served at all.
As per the procedure, the Applicant is required to submit a response to the Examination Report issued by the TMO within one month from the date of receipt of such Report which is sent via post by the TMO. However, the deadline is calculated from the date of the receipt of the Examination Report by the Applicant and not from the date of dispatch/availability of the same on the TMO's website.
The unprecedented move of the TMO led the IP fraternity to challenge the same in the Delhi High Court and the Court vide its order dated April 05, 2016 has stayed all the abandonment orders issued by the TMO after March 20, 2016.
Further, as a result of a plethora of complaints, the TMO has issued a Public Notice dated April 04, 2016 (which can be accessed here) calling upon the Applicants/ Agents who feel that their application(s) have been wrongfully abandoned to submit sufficient documentary evidence substantiating their case before April 30, 2016.
Therefore, with the aim of safeguarding the rights of our clients, we have already compiled a list of such Applications and are collating documentary evidence to substantiate our stand before the TMO. Further, by way abundant caution, we will be filing the Responses to the Examination Reports in such cases along with the detailed requests to have the said trade mark applications revived. We are sanguine that the Right Holders will not be affected and the applications that have been erroneously abandoned will be revived/restored.
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