India Joins the International Trademark System

Yesterday, Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Anand Sharma submitted India's instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). MR. Sharma is attending a High Level Policy Dialogue on "Innovation and Development: The Indian Experience" at the WIPO. The treaty will come into force with respect to India from July 8, 2013.

Mr. Sharma and Mr. Gurry at the WIPO yesterday
(Photo: WIPO/Berrod)

The main attraction of the Madrid System is that it offers a trademark owner the opportunity of having his trademark protected in all the member countries of the Madrid system through a single application in a single language with a single set of fees. As a result of India joining the Madrid System, trademark owners can get their trademarks protected in the Indian market as well as in the markets of the eighty nine other member countries through a single application. This step therefore, makes it much easier for trademark owners to get protection for their trademarks in India by significantly reducing the paperwork and currency involved. The same benefit is also available for Indian companies who want their trademarks protected in the other 89 member countries of the Madrid  System.

The Madrid System also allows trademark owners the benefit of online tools which can be used to find existing trademarks, estimate the filing costs and to make electronic payments for the same, check registration status etc. This makes the task of subsequent management of the trademark much easier as well as registration can be renewed online and subsequent changes can be recorded etc through a single procedural step.

(Readers can refer to Mathews' excellently written two part post on the Madrid System and Indian trademark owners, available here and here, for a more detailed analysis of the same.)

These benefits have resulted in the Madrid System becoming attractive for large businesses as well as SME's.  While there has generally been a strong growth in demand for IPR's in 2012, there has been a 4.1% increase in the number of trademark applications filed under the Madrid system in particular in 2012 as compared to 2011. In fact there were 44,018 applications filed in 2012 which was the highest number of applications filed under the Madrid system till date. The statistics regarding the applications can be found here.

On the whole, India's membership in the Madrid System appears to be a welcome step for foreign companies who wish to register their trademarks in India as well as for Indian companies who can get registration for their trademarks in any or all of the member countries of the Madrid system, according to their business needs through a cost-effective, time-friendly, comparitively hassle-free step.

(For readers who are interested in whether the Trademark Registry in India is in fact capable of meeting the deadlines that the Madrid Protocol prescribes can check out these posts about the TM Registry, available here and here  as well as Prashant's analysis of the Trademark Amendment Bill, 2009 through which there was an attempt to incorporate the Madrid Protocol.)