Our Senior Associate, Ajaya Kumar discusses “Virtual
Hearings at the Trade Marks Registry”
Much like many establishments in the legal field, the Trade
Marks Registry has quickly adapted to a new working
style—from offline to online! In a big announcement made late
last year, the Registry commenced virtual hearings in October
2020!
In late October 2020, the Registry first began oral hearings on
objections raised with respect to trade mark applications. Since
then, these hearings, also known as show-cause hearings, have been
held regularly, leading to a reduction in backlog of pendency of
applications. At this time, the Registry is scheduling virtual
hearings for applications that are extensions of international
registrations within four (4) to six (6) months from the date of
filing responses to provisional refusal. Hearings on national
applications are also being scheduled fairly regularly. In our
view, the virtual hearing system has worked well so far. Links
