Trademark Act

In India, there was no proper legislation pertaining to trademark before 1940. The cases of infringement and violation of trademark were governed by rules and regulations of Specific Relief Act and Indian Penal Code. This rules were incapable of providing proper relief and damages to the claimant, as a result there was considerable demand for the enactment of Trademark Law. In the year 1940, the parliament enacted Indian Trademarks Act as a pure law on the subject. However the concerned persons complained that many valuable marks were not getting the benefit of registration due to failure to fulfill the criteria of distinctiveness lay down by the Act. Thus there was demand for enlarging the scope of the Act, which resulted in the passing of Trade & Merchandise Act, 1958. Nearly for forty years the Act looked after the matters concerning trademarks in India but in view of the developments in trade and commerce, increase in globalization and the need to encourage investments flow, transfer of technology , simplification of laws, Indian parliament enacted the Indian Trademarks Act,1999. The main objective of the new Act is to consolidate the law relating to goods and services and to prevent infringement of trademarks. One of the remarkable changes brought by the new act was the registration of trademarks relating to services in addition to goods. The earlier Act did not have any provisions to the registration of trademark for services. The new Trademark Act brought into existence the concepts such as collective marks, provisions for rectification and correction of the register of trademarks, infringement etc.