Trademark Renewal and Restoration of a Removed Mark

When does a trademark registration expire in India?

A trademark registration expires ten years from the date of application, not ten years from the date on the certificate. Section 23(1) of the Trade Marks Act treats the registration as made on the application date, and section 25(1) gives it a ten-year life from that date. If you filed in March 2016 and the certificate came in 2019 after an opposition, the first term still ends in March 2026.

This is where most owners go wrong. They look at the certificate, see a 2019 date, and assume they have until 2029. When Advocate B.K. Singh checks a client's renewal date, he ignores the certificate and works from the application date shown on the e-register entry on the IP India portal, because that is the date the Registry will use.

Each renewal adds ten years from the expiry of the previous term, not from the day you file. So renewing eleven months early costs you nothing; you do not lose the unused months. Marks first registered under the old Trade and Merchandise Marks Act 1958 had seven-year terms, but any renewal granted after the 1999 Act came into force in September 2003 runs for ten years.

There is no limit on the number of renewals. A mark that is renewed on time and used in trade can stay on the register for as long as the business exists.

When can I file for trademark renewal, and who can file?

You can file the renewal application at any time within one year before the registration expires. The form is TM-R, filed online on the IP India portal with the official fee for each class. A mark registered in three classes under one multi-class registration needs the renewal fee for all three; separate registrations in different classes each need their own TM-R.

The application must be made by the registered proprietor, or by an advocate or registered trademark agent authorised by the proprietor. There is no fresh examination, no advertisement and no opposition at the renewal stage. The Registry does not ask you to prove use. Once the form and fee are in order, the renewal is entered in the register and shows on the e-register.

Renewal cannot be used to change the mark. If your logo has been redesigned, renewing the old registration keeps only the old logo protected. A small alteration that does not substantially affect the identity of the mark can be requested under section 59, but a new logo usually needs a fresh application, which is worth filing alongside the renewal of the old one.

How to renew a trademark online: the steps

The renewal itself takes a short session on the portal. The work lies in checking the record before you file, because a renewal filed in the wrong name or against a wrong number causes more trouble than a late one.

1. Pull the e-register entry

   Search the registration number on the IP India public search and download the e-register extract. Note the application date, the class or classes, the proprietor's name and address on record, and the agent or advocate on record.

2. Compare the record with reality

   Check whether the proprietor is still the same legal person. A proprietorship that became a company, a firm whose partners changed, a company that merged or changed its name, or a mark bought from someone else all mean the record is out of date.

3. Record changes first, in Form TM-P

   File the request to record the assignment, change of name, change of address or transmission in Form TM-P with the supporting deed or certificate. The renewal can be filed at the same time, but the Registry will act on it more smoothly once the proprietor on record matches the applicant.

4. File Form TM-R with the fee

   File TM-R online, mentioning the registration number and class, and pay the official renewal fee for each class. If you are within six months after expiry, the surcharge is paid along with it on the same form.

5. Track the entry and keep proof

   Keep the filing receipt. Check the e-register after a few weeks to confirm the new expiry date is shown. Save a dated copy of the updated extract with your company records, since it is the first document a court or a buyer of the business will ask to see.

If an agent or advocate filed the original application, the renewal does not have to go through the same person. A new advocate can file with a fresh authorisation from the proprietor.

Trademark renewal timeline: what you can still do and when

Count every period from the expiry date, which is the tenth anniversary of the application date (or of the last renewal).

What if the owner on record has changed?

A renewal filed by someone who is not the proprietor on record is the most common reason renewals get stuck. Businesses change shape over ten years. A sole proprietor incorporates a private limited company and keeps using the brand, but the registration still stands in the proprietor's personal name. Partners retire. A company is amalgamated into another under a scheme approved by the NCLT. Each of these changes the legal owner, and the register has to be brought up to date.

For an assignment, you need a written deed of assignment, stamped as per the state's stamp law, and the request in Form TM-P. For a company's change of name, the fresh certificate of incorporation issued by the ROC is enough. For amalgamation, the NCLT order sanctioning the scheme. When a sole proprietor has died, the legal heirs apply for transmission, usually with a succession certificate, a probated will or a family settlement and no-objection from the other heirs.

If the original proprietor is a person who has fallen out with the business, for example a former partner or a director who registered the mark in his own name, renewal turns into a dispute about ownership. The renewal should still be protected by filing in time, but the real question goes to rectification or a civil suit. Our post on co-founder disputes in startups deals with that situation, which is more common than people expect.

What happens if I miss the trademark renewal date?

Missing the date does not end the registration on the same day. Section 25(3) requires the Registrar, before the term expires, to send a notice to the registered proprietor about the expiry date and the conditions for renewal. Under the Trade Marks Rules 2017 this notice is in Form RG-3 and is sent not more than six months before expiry; under the earlier 2002 Rules it was Form O-3, sent between one and three months before expiry. If the renewal and surcharge are paid within six months after expiry, the mark is renewed as if nothing happened.

The notice goes to the address for service on record. That is often an agent's office from ten years ago, or a factory address the business left long back. Owners who say they never got any notice are often right; the notice went where the register told it to go. Keeping the address for service current is the single most useful thing an owner can do between renewals.

During the six months after expiry, the mark is still on the register, but it is in a weak position. If you need to sue an infringer, the other side will point to the expired term. File the renewal with surcharge before you file anything else.

Removal from the register and what it means for your brand

If neither renewal nor surcharge is paid within six months after expiry, the Registrar removes the mark from the register and advertises the removal in the Trade Marks Journal. Removal means you lose the statutory rights that registration gives: the right to sue for infringement under section 29, the presumption of validity and the ease of proving ownership by a certificate.

You do not lose everything. Your rights in the brand from actual use in trade survive, and you can still sue for passing off on the strength of goodwill. The difference matters in court, because passing off needs proof of reputation, misrepresentation and damage, where infringement mostly needs the registration and a comparison of the marks. Our post on trademark infringement versus passing off explains what each action asks you to prove.

Section 26 gives a removed mark a short afterlife. For one year after removal, the removed mark is treated as still on the register when the Registry examines someone else's application for an identical or deceptively similar mark. The exceptions are where there was no bona fide trade use of the removed mark in the two years before removal, or where no confusion would arise. So a competitor who rushes to file your brand the week after removal should not get it through on that ground alone.

How to restore a removed trademark within one year

Section 25(4) allows the Registrar, after six months and within one year from the expiry of the last registration, to restore a removed mark and renew it, on an application in the prescribed form and payment of the prescribed fee, if satisfied that it is just to do so. The application is again made in Form TM-R, this time as a request for restoration and renewal, with the restoration fee and the renewal fee.

The words "just to do so" matter. The Registry looks at why the renewal was missed and whether restoration would harm someone else. A short affidavit or statement explaining the lapse (the notice not received, the person in charge leaving, illness, an agent's failure) and showing continuous use of the mark helps. Invoices, advertisements and sales figures across the years since registration show that the mark is alive and not a dead registration being revived only to pressure a competitor.

If a third party has filed an application for a similar mark in the gap, the Registrar takes that into account in deciding whether restoration is just, and the dispute may move to opposition or rectification. Act inside the one-year window whatever the reason; the statute does not allow the Registrar to restore after it.

Documents for trademark renewal and restoration

Keep these ready before you file. Most can be pulled from your own records in a day; the ownership papers take longer.

Can a trademark be restored after more than one year?

Not by the Registrar under section 25(4), but the High Court can set aside a removal that was illegal in the first place. Courts have held that sending the renewal notice under section 25(3) is a mandatory condition before a mark can be removed. If the Registry never sent the notice, the removal itself is defective, and the High Court can direct restoration under Article 226 even many years later.

The Delhi High Court applied this in Rakesh Kumar Mittal v Registrar of Trade Marks (2025), ordering restoration of the MILTON mark for audio goods, which had lapsed in 2004 and been removed in 2010, because the Registry's own record showed no O-3 notice was issued. Earlier Delhi and Bombay High Court decisions had taken the same line. Courts have also refused relief where the owner sat on the lapse for many years with no explanation, so this is not an automatic route back.

In restoration matters that reach Advocate B.K. Singh, the first document he asks for is the Registry's own record of whether the RG-3 or O-3 notice was actually issued and to which address. An RTI application to the Trade Marks Registry usually answers that. If the notice was sent to the correct address and simply ignored, a writ petition has poor prospects. If it was never sent, or sent to an address the Registry had already been told was changed, the case is strong, and the remaining questions are delay and what third parties have done in the meantime.

A writ against the Registrar is filed in the High Court with territorial jurisdiction over the Registry office that holds the record, which for most marks filed in northern India is the Delhi office. The petition should be filed promptly once the lapse is discovered; a fresh delay after discovery is hard to explain.

Renewing a mark that was registered after ten years

Some applications stay pending for years because of objections or oppositions, and occasionally a mark is registered after ten years from its application date have already passed. The registration is then born already due for renewal. The Trade Marks Rules 2017 deal with this: the Registrar notifies the proprietor, and the renewal fee (with surcharge where applicable) can be paid within six months from the actual date of registration.

In practice, owners in this position should file TM-R as soon as the certificate issues, without waiting for a notice. If the opposition took a decade, there is a fair chance the address for service has changed too.

Renewal does not protect a mark you are not using

Renewal keeps the registration alive on paper, but it does not shield it from cancellation for non-use. Under section 47, any aggrieved person can apply to have a mark removed for the goods or services in which it has not been used for a continuous period of five years and three months up to a date three months before the application. A renewed registration for a mark the owner stopped using in 2019 can still be taken off the register on a rectification application.

The opposite is also true. A mark in genuine use is far easier to defend, restore or enforce. Keep a simple year-wise file of use for each registered mark: a few invoices showing the mark, photographs of packaging, catalogues, website captures and advertisements. It costs nothing to maintain and it is the first thing you will need in restoration, rectification, opposition or a suit.

Mistakes that cost owners their trademark registrations

• Counting from the certificate date. The term runs from the application date. Owners who diarise the certificate date are often a few years late before they realise it.
• Leaving an old address for service. The renewal notice goes to whatever address is on record. If that is a closed office or a former agent, you will not see it.
• Renewing in the wrong name. If the business has been incorporated, sold or merged, record the change in Form TM-P. A renewal in the name of a person who no longer owns the business invites objections later.
• Renewing only the logo, not the word. If the word mark and the logo were registered separately, each needs its own renewal. The word mark is usually the more valuable one.
• Assuming the agent will remember. Agents close practices, retire and change emails. Keep your own record of every registration number and expiry date.
• Waiting for the notice before acting. The notice is a courtesy and a legal condition for removal, not a reminder system you should rely on.
• Missing the one-year restoration window while gathering papers. File the restoration application in time with what you have, and supplement documents later if the Registry asks.

Should you renew every mark and every class?

Not always. Ten years is long enough for a business to drop product lines, rebrand or stop selling in some categories. Before renewing, list each registration with its class and ask whether the business still uses that mark for those goods or plans to. Renewing a registration for goods you abandoned years ago keeps a mark on the register that is open to a non-use challenge anyway.

That said, the renewal fee is small compared with the cost of losing a mark you later need. Where the brand is core to the business, renew every class in which you use it, and file fresh applications for classes you have expanded into since. If you are licensing or franchising the brand, a licensee will want to see a live registration in each relevant class; our post on franchise agreement disputes shows how a lapsed mark can unsettle a franchise relationship.

If the business has rebranded, renew the old registration for at least one more term if stock under the old name is still in the market, and register the new mark at once. For a new name, the checks in our post on choosing a brand name and the legal checks before launch apply.

What to do this week if your mark is near expiry or has lapsed

Work through these in order. Most owners can finish the first four in a day.

• List every registration number your business holds and download the current e-register entry for each.
• Write down the application date and the expiry date for each one, counting ten years from the application date or the last renewal.
• Check that the proprietor and the address for service on record are current; if not, prepare the Form TM-P request.
• If expiry is within a year or has passed by less than six months, file Form TM-R now.
• If the mark has expired by six to twelve months, file for restoration and renewal immediately with a short explanation and proof of use.
• If more than a year has passed, file an RTI application asking whether the RG-3 or O-3 notice was issued, when and to which address.
• Search the register for any similar application filed by someone else since the lapse, and diarise the opposition deadline if it has been advertised.
• Put every future expiry date in two separate calendars, one of them outside the person who usually handles it.

If someone has filed or copied your lapsed mark

A lapse often comes to light because a competitor has moved in. Look at three things at once. First, whether your mark can still be renewed, restored or revived through a writ, because a registration in your hands changes the whole dispute. Second, whether the competitor has filed an application; if it has been advertised in the Journal, you have four months to oppose it, and our post on trademark opposition explains how. Third, whether the copying in the market needs an injunction now, which can be sought in a passing off suit even without a registration.

Trademark suits are commercial disputes, so they go to the commercial courts, or to the Delhi High Court's IP Division where the value is high enough. Where urgent interim relief is sought, the suit can be filed without first going through pre-institution mediation. Our page on the commercial courts in Delhi explains where such a case is filed.

If you want an advocate to check your registration dates or a removal notice before you file anything, the team of Advocate B.K. Singh at B.K. Singh & Associates can read the e-register and Registry record and tell you which of these routes is still open. You can reach us through the online enquiry form, or see how we handle filings on our trademark and copyright registration page.