Dear All,
As you may know, on September 24th 2010, Controller General of Patents, Trademarks & Designs notified that over a period of 6 months, roughly from March 2010 to September 2010, about 56,429 registered trademarks have been notified in TM Journal as removed from the Register of Trade Marks due to non-payment of renewal fees within the prescribed period provided by law. Thereafter, numerous complaints were received in respect of the same, wherein a few complainants mentioned that no notice has been received by the proprietor or the new attorney on record whose mark has been removed from the Register. Additionally, some complainants also complained that they never received that the original registration certificate, or that it has been sent to the previous attorney on record in some cases, or the speaking orders of the Hearing Officers have not given effect to the application to proceed to registration and registration certificates have in fact not been received by the Applicants, but the trade mark was now removed from the Register.
Therefore, in order to ensure justice is not denied to such complainants, an opportunity of giving a representation by way of a petition was provided, which was to be submitted before November 30th, 2010.
However, after receiving various requests from the practitioners and stakeholders stating that the last date for receiving such petition for restoration of removed marks be extended due to variety of practical difficulties faced, the learned Controller has agreed to extend the above-mentioned deadline till March 31st 2011.
The purpose of this exercise is to weed out the lapsed marks from the Register of Trade Marks due to non-renewal to ensure purity of the Register and to prevent abuse of the system.
I believe this is an excellent opportunity for all the interested parties to make use of the extended time period and make sure such petitions are filed within the stipulated time frame.
Law Office of Rahul Dev 