Sparsh Goel Advocate · New Delhi

Home/Areas of Practice/Intellectual Property

Areas of practice

Trade marks and designs

For most businesses, the intellectual property that matters commercially is the name, the mark and the appearance of the product. That is where this part of the practice sits.

Trade marks

  • Availability searches on the Register before a name is adopted
  • Advice on the class or classes in which protection is required
  • Filing of applications under the Trade Marks Act, 1999
  • Replies to examination reports and appearance at hearings
  • Opposition and rectification proceedings
  • Renewals, assignments and recordal of changes
  • Cease-and-desist correspondence, and infringement and passing-off proceedings

I am also an empanelled attorney under the Government of India's Scheme for Facilitating Start-Ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP), and a registered facilitator on the IP Mitra platform.

Further reading: when should you file your first trade mark?

Designs

Registration of the shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article under the Designs Act, 2000, including advice on whether a design is registrable, preparation of representations, and prosecution of the application. A registered design is protected for ten years from registration, extendable by a further five.

Design protection is frequently the right instrument where the commercial value sits in how a product looks rather than in what it is called — and it is lost if the design is published before the application is filed, which makes the sequencing important.

Enforcement

Where a mark is being copied, the options range from correspondence through to a suit for infringement or passing off with an application for interim injunction. I have acted in this area for Indian proprietors and for a European proprietor whose mark was being used without authority in India.

A note on patents

I do not file or prosecute patent applications. Under the Patents Act, 1970 those steps are undertaken before the Patent Office by a registered patent agent. Where a matter involves patents, I can advise on the surrounding commercial and contractual questions — assignment, licensing, employment terms dealing with inventions — and work alongside a patent agent on the filing itself.

Please note

This page describes areas of work. It is not advice on any particular mark, design or dispute, and it creates no advocate–client relationship. Registrability and the strength of any claim depend entirely on the facts.