If you had filed your trademark application on paper in India with specification of goods or services exceeding 500 characters and if an application requesting inclusion of additional characters was not filed at the time of filing the new application for registration of your trademark, a TM-61 alert will be displayed on the online status page of the Indian Trademark Office as shown below.

An application for registration of a trademark in India can be filed by submission of the requisite Form along with the official fee of INR 3500/- (approximately USD 70) per class clearly mentioning the specification of goods or services. The specification of goods and services should to be within 500 characters. When calculating the characters in the specifications of goods or services the spaces are not included. In case the specification of goods and services are in excess of 500 characters then the same can be included in the same application by filing an additional request on Form TM-61 along with the official fee calculated at INR 10/- (approximately USD 0.20) per character. Once the request on Form TM-61 is filed the alert will be removed by the Indian Trademark Office.

If you decide against filing the application to include the excess characters you can file an amendment request in Form TM-16 along with the official fee of INR 500/- (approximately USD 10) per class to remove the excess characters, thereby limiting the specification of goods and services to 500 characters. However you should also consider that in practice it takes approximately 6 to 8 months or even more for an amendment application to be taken on record which would delay the processing of your application for registration of your trademark. More so as a routine practice the Indian Trademark Office appoints a hearing for the purpose of allowing the amendment application and this might not only cause further delay but also additional costs.

This can be avoided by filing your application for registration of your trademark online where the additional official fee in respect of the excess characters in the specification of goods or services are calculated and charged by the online filing system at the time of filing the application thereby avoiding unnecessary costs and undue delays.

It is important that this alert is removed for the Indian Trademark Office to process your application further.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for legal counsel.

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