By Bhanu Dhingra and Prabhjot Kaur
In furtherance to the Public Notice dated February 06, 2023 notified in the Trade Marks Journal No. 2090[1] , the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM), Mumbai in Trade Marks Journal No. 2097 dated March 27, 2023 [2], has now published a list of applications in respect of which the Applicants/ Agent have not submitted the Non-cash receipt (NCR) or any other document sufficing that a reply to Examination Report has been filed till March 20, 2023.
The notice clarifies that the Registry had given an opportunity to Applicants/ Agents to submit supporting documents regarding submission of reply to the Examination Report and it had received some submissions which are being reviewed by the Registry for verification. In the instant Public Notice dated March 27, 2023, the Registry has published the remaining applications as Annexure-1 which excludes the submissions received by Registry till March 20, 2023, through email notices. The Applications which are published as Annexure-1 along with the said notice are treated as ‘abandoned’ under Section 132 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and Rule 33(4) of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017.
Further, the Registry has given another opportunity to Applicants/ Agents of published applications, who have replied to the examination reports within the prescribed time, to submit and notify the NCR (Non-Cash Receipt) or any other documents sufficing submission of reply to the examination report, to Grievance Cell of the Registrar of Trade Marks, Mumbai within a period of 45 days from date of the notice, i.e., till May 11, 2023.
The notice further states that the grievances are required to be filed through the Head of Office of the respective Trade Marks Registry in physical form for scrutiny by Grievance Cell of Mumbai. In case of any further clarifications, the cell will approach the Applicants/ Agents of such applications while reviewing their abandoned applications.
Opposition
In February 2023, the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks (CGPDTM) also issued a public notice, stating that applications in which trademark oppositions had been filed and notices of opposition had also been served by the Trade Marks Registry (TMR) to the Applicant, and no counter statement was received within the prescribed time as prescribed by the Act and Rules, the same shall be ‘deemed to have abandoned’ as per the provision of Section 21(2) of the Trade Marks Act. The Registry had also published a rather voluminous list of such applications, and had further given time of 30 days to Applicants to show that they had in fact filed the said documents within time. You may read our article on the same here.
In this regard, the Registry has now issued another public notice on March 27, 2023, acknowledging that they had received some submissions in light of the public notice dated February 06, 2023, and the same is being reviewed by the Registry. The Registry has also published another list of applications (excluding the submissions which are under review), which have now been abandoned/ treated as ‘deemed to have been abandoned’ under Section 21(2) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. However, the Registry has given yet another opportunity to Applicants/ Agents of published applications, who have duly filed the counter statements within the prescribed time, to submit and notify the NCR (Non-Cash Receipt)/ CBR (Cash Book Receipt) or any other documents sufficing to file of the counter statement within the prescribed time, to the Grievance Cell of the Registrar of Trade Marks, Mumbai, within a period of 45 days from the date of the notice, i.e. till May 11, 2023.
[1]https://ssrana.in/articles/abandonment-of-marks-under-ipindia/
[2]https://search.ipindia.gov.in/IPOJournal/Journal/ViewJournal
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