Free online trademark search likely from next month

The facility, to be extended by the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, is likely to be available in the next few weeks, a top official said at a CII meet here today.
As of now, a person has to pay Rs 500 to search whether the trademark of his choice is available. He also has to physically go the Trademark Registry Office.

The move will also save entrepreneurs from touts who promise trademarks, which are already booked, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks P H Kurian said.
About 85,000 applications for registration of trademarks have already been filed in the first six months of the current fiscal. In 2009-10, about 1.41 lakh applications were filed.
The Trademarks Registry is in Mumbai and its branches are located in Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad and New Delhi.

Kurian further said that his department was working on developing a refined search engine for the Indian patents.The government has received about 20,000 applications for grant of patents in the first half of 2010-11 and the number is likely to cross 40,000 this fiscal, he said. The patent office had received about 35,000 applications last year