What filing directly through IP India involves
The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks runs the ipindia.gov.in portal, and any applicant can e-file Form TM-A without professional help. The government fee for online filing is ₹4,500 per class for individuals, startups, and small enterprises, and ₹9,000 per class for other entities. To file, you need a Class 3 digital signature certificate, your applicant details, a clear representation of the mark, the correct class or classes under the Nice Classification, and a description of goods or services.
On paper, that’s the whole process. In practice, filing is the easiest 10% of the work. The other 90% is everything most CAs are not meant to do.
Where DIY filings go wrong
The search. Before you file, someone needs to run a comprehensive availability search: identical marks, phonetically similar marks, deceptively similar marks, marks in adjacent classes that a court might still consider conflicting. The public search tool on IP India checks exact and phonetic matches within a class. Reading search results the way an Examiner or an opposing counsel would read about them is a skill, and it is precisely the skill that separates a trademark professional from a generalist.
Class selection. India follows 45 classes. File in the wrong one, or file in only one when your business spans three, and your registration protects a business you don’t run while leaving the one you do run exposed.
Objections. A large share of applications receives an examination report citing Section 9 (the mark is descriptive or non-distinctive) or Section 11 (it conflicts with an earlier mark). You get 30 days to file a reply. A well-drafted reply cites precedent, distinguishes the cited marks, and often includes evidence of use.
Hearings and opposition. If the Examiner isn’t satisfied with your written reply, the matter goes to a show-cause hearing. If a third party opposes your published mark, you’re into a full adversarial proceeding with evidence stages and deadlines.
Only registered agents and attorneys can represent you. Under the Trademarks Act, a person can appear before the Registry either on their own behalf or through a registered trademark agent or an advocate. Your CA, unless separately registered as a trademark agent, has no standing to represent you at a hearing, which is one more reason IP work routed through a CA tends to stop at the filing stage.
Case studies
Toyota lost “Prius” in India. Toyota launched the Prius globally in 1997 and registered the name in major markets, except India. A Delhi-based auto parts maker, Prius Auto Industries, registered “Prius” here in 2002. When Toyota finally entered the Indian market and sued, the case ran all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Toyota in 2017, holding that the company hadn’t established sufficient reputation for the mark within India before the local registration. One of the world’s largest carmakers spent roughly eight years in litigation and still couldn’t recover a name it invented, because someone else filed first in this jurisdiction.
Burger King’s 13-year fight in Pune. A small Pune eatery had been trading as “Burger King” since 1992, more than two decades before the American chain opened in India. When the global company sued in 2011, the dispute grounded for over 13 years before a Pune court ruled in the local restaurant’s favour in 2024 on the strength of prior use, with appeals continuing after that.
PhonePe vs BharatPe. Two of India’s best-funded fintechs spent years litigating over the suffix “Pe,” with the Delhi High Court declining PhonePe interim relief in 2021 and related proceedings continuing across forums. Both companies could afford the fight. The point for an early-stage founder is that even a partial naming conflict, once it matures into litigation between operating businesses, consumes crores and years.
And that is the pattern in Anshita’s story too. The mistake wasn’t malice or negligence. It was routing specialist work to a generalist.
Is DIY not an Option at all?
It depends, if your mark is a coined, highly distinctive word, you’ve run a thorough search including phonetic variants and adjacent classes, you’re filing in one clear class, and you’re comfortable handling an examination reply yourself, a direct filing can succeed. A few do.
The risk isn’t the form; the risk is what you don’t know you missed, and a coined word in an uncrowded class leaves less room to miss things than a descriptive beauty-product name in Class 3, one of the most congested classes in the Indian registry.
