Trademark Cannot Be Removed From Official Records Without Notice, Even If Not Renewed For 7 Years After Expiration: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court held that despite no renewal application being made by the trade-mark holder even after seven years of expiry, the Registrar of Trade Marks could not remove the registered Trade-Mark from the official record without following the process under Section 25(3) of the Trademarks Act, 1999 (“the Act”) and the rule 58 of the Trade Mark rules, 2017 (“the Rules”).

The bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand was hearing a petition challenging the removal of their trademark “Lala Ji Diamond Agarbatti” from the official record without following the mandatory provisions of law.

On the contrary, it was the case of the respondents that the trademark of the petitioner was valid till 2009, after which it expired. Since then, no renewal application has been made for 7 years. Hence, the trademark was removed from the official records.

After hearing the contentions, the Court perused Section 25(3) of the Act and Rule 58 of the Rules, which provided that not more than 6 months before the expiration of the registration of the trademark, the Registrar shall send a notice in Form RG-3 informing the registered proprietor about the approaching expiration. Subsequently, in case no renewal was made, the trademark could be removed.

The Court opined that it was clear that the respondent was supposed to comply with the mandatory requirement of issuing notice before expiration of the trademark before proceeding to remove it from the official record.

Since no such notice was issued in the present case, the action of removal of the registered trademark of the petitioner was not sustainable, and hence, was liable to be set aside.

Accordingly, the petition was allowed.

Title: Jitendra Goyal v Registrar of Trade Marks

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 237

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