The number of trademark applications in many countries has increased sharply after the decline in the initial period when the Covid epidemic broke out. In early 2020, the global outbreak of Covid-19 harmed all sectors of the world economy, including the intellectual property sector. However, after a period of calmness, the number of trademark applications soared again, even more than the pre-pandemic data. India is among these countries.
January and February 2020 have a total of 31,235 and 30,617 trademark registrations in India. This number dropped to 23,668 in March and further dropped to 10,313 in April. The trademark application trend started to increase again in May with 19,794 applications. This number soared to 33,520 the following month. At this point, the total monthly applications are already past January and February 2020.
The number of monthly trademark registrations continued to increase until they reached 46,585 in September. Starting from October 2020, monthly trademark applications tended to increase and decrease in number until February of the year 2021. Yet, these numbers are still higher than those from January and February 2020 – two months before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in India (although the first case is recorded at the end of January, the outbreak lost controls after February 2020). In January 2021 there were a total of 38,023 trademark applications while in February 2021 there were 40,083.
Overall, the number of trademark applications increased by 17.4% between 2019 and 2020.
Expert opinion on the sudden change in the number of trademark registration applications
Kruttika Vijay, attorney at Ira Law in New Delhi, believes that the growing number of trademark filings is directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on business operations.
According to Vijay: “India has imposed a blockade to limit the spread of the pandemic between March and May 2020. While business has slowed down in most sectors, it is also time for many people to think carefully about their business. Businesses begin to analyze where they need to scale and, more importantly, which aspect of their business is most valuable. Against this backdrop, I believe that businesses (including startups) have begun the process of reviewing, consolidating, and protecting their IP portfolios. This has led to an increase in trademark applications.”
Sonal Madan, a partner at Chadha & Chadha IP in New Delhi expressed that this spike in the number of trademark applications could be the result of several factors related to the Covid-19 pandemic. These include boredom, despair, and renewal.
According to Madan: “The pandemic has created opportunities for highly creative individuals to make the most of their boredom when they are trapped in their homes. Hence, innovation is at an all-time high. ”
A good example is the registration of the trademark “CORONA YUGA” in the table games trademark group. This game aims to honor Corona warriors and spread awareness of safety measures during a pandemic.
“In addition to individuals, businesses are also moving towards filing innovative applications to maintain consumer confidence and further diversify brand extensions. For example, many breweries and distilleries across the country have diversified their businesses to produce sterilized products when the initial panic from the pandemic left store shelves and online store runs out of these products.”
You can see a list of India IP firms here.