Dhanpat Rai Arora, trading as Delhi Trading Syndicate in Delhi, has filed a trade mark application on February 14, 1996, for a trade mark for his toothpick product. It could have been went unnotices as thousands of other trade mark applications, but for the opposition raised by the multinational beverages firm Pepsico after several years. The reason - Arora's application is for the trade mark Pepsi.
This could be read along with the Hindustan Lever's opposition against Chakrapani Hosiery's trade mark application for Sunsilk, Societe Des Products Nestle S A against Gautam Sons (P) Ltd on the trade mark Kitkat and Hindustan Latex Ltd's opposition against Raj Pal Bansal & Sons for the trade mark Saheli.
If a new initiative of the Controller General Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) becomes success, many such long pending disputes over trade marks may come down in the country.
The Controller's office, in collaboration with Delhi State Legal Service Authority (DSLSA) has undertaken an initiative to liquidate such pendency through mediation, conciliation under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. The pilot initiative is on 500 trade mark disputes. According to officials from the Trade Mark Registry, there are around 1.3 lakh trade mark disputes pending with the Registry across the country at present.
In a public notice issued of late, Om Prakash Gupta, CGPDTM, said that the initiative is in view of the pendency of the Opposition/Rectification matters at Trade Mark Registry, Delhi.
"Initially, it has been decided to undertake the project on pilot basis by taking up 500 pending Opposition/Rectification matters," he said.
A senior official from the registry said that it is an experiment and out of the 500 cases, in which there are at least 1000 parties including the applicants and the opponents. Only those cases where both the sides give their consent to go for a conciliation process could be taken forward for further procedure.
The official said that the expectations are that at least 300 cases could be settled through conciliation. Once an agreement on conciliation is arrived at, the case will be handed over to the registry, since it is mandatory that only the registry shall issue an order on the Trade Mark applications. If the mediation is not fruitful, the case would go back to the normal procedure under the Registry.
Officials said that it would take at least six months to one year to get some of these cases finalised, even through conciliation.
At present, the registry has only one or two officers in each of its five offices in the country - in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kolkata who can handle opposition matters, said officials and lawyers.
This means the number of officials who are eligible to handle the entire trade mark oppositions at present are around seven to 10, they say. These officials are also burdened with administrative works, which in effect reduce the time spent on the opposition matters.
"Trying to give it for mediation is a good thing. But then, singling out Delhi is a bad thing," said Mohan Dewan, principal, Patent and Trade Mark Attorney, R K Dewan & Co. He said that the other offices also have large number of trade mark opposition's pending and Chennai office could have more such cases pending than any other office.
The whole process of trade mark dispute is delayed due to the administrative issues, said sources. If an opposition is filed, it would take almost an year for the Trade Mark office to send the notice to the applicant, they alleged. There are oppositions pending for around 10 to 20 years.
While the mediation would help to close down the pre-settled matters, what is required first is weeding out of bad cases from the registry at first, said Dewan. For instance, there are matters in which the parties might not have followed the stipulated timeframe, which technically has to be removed from the registry. However, such cases are also pending, which adds to the pendency issue.
