Sign Document for IT Myself

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You need a lawyer. Or at least an arbitrator.You are trying to get reparations for damage caused, which means you need a legal contract or agreement. You should not be doing this without a neutral third party involved.You also need to know what the statute of limitations is on taking legal action. Because if she does not agree to a solution under civil law, you also have the fact that what she did is a crime to put additional pressure on her.Because yes, if she will not agree voluntarily, you are going to court. Possibly both civil court and criminal court (as a witness).Get legal assistance. Not advice from unaccountable strangers on the internet.

What you are describing is a standard form known as a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).However, (a) it is likely that you really don’t need one, and (b) no serious investor will sign one. Here’s why:

Mostly agree with John White, but realistically a lawyer won't be able to help you (unless you need help parting with large chunks of your money). The layers of liability protection that have been drilled into me as as follows: 1 - your contract. this document should lay out where your liability ends and state specifically that you are essentially supplying advice and design options to your client, but it's up to them to choose how to execute and you're not responsible for the choice they make. 2 - Insurance. It's possible to get insurance that protects you in case of an "error or omission" (that's what the insurance product is called). this can be very expensive, i was quoted something north of $3K per year. The long-time ME contractors I know have never been required to purchase this insurance and have done just fine without it.3- LLC status. Ultimately this does very little for you, as any competent lawyer bringing suit against your work will just sue you personally in addition to your LLC. Lots of folks I know don't even bother with it until it makes sense for tax reasons.Aside from that, you will definitely need a mutual NDA which covers privileged info passing from you to your client, and vice-versa, though you probably signed one before walking through their doors.

Bare in mind… these were bad, bad kids.It was a glorious summer day at Jones Beach State Park on Long Island. My mother had packed my sister and her little girlfriend into the back seat of our Datsun, with my friend Ryan. One of the pros to being a big, broad teenager was I was granted “shotgun” for life amongst my peers, resulting in rarely ever being one of the ones squished in the backseat of cars (years later I would learn there were pros to being squished in the backseat with girls, but seeing as how I was a stammering bundle of nerves around girls, I doubt it would've mattered much).The five of us had decided to make a rare family pilgrimage to the beach this day, as it was a far cry from my mother being holed up in a dingy bar pounding bloody-marys while Ryan, who was a year older than me at 15, and I paroused the streets with our hooligan goon squad, protecting our block from gangs and drug dealers in our area (being biproducts of addicts made us all very jaded towards that element in our neighborhood). We saw it as a day trip away from the pratfalls of our existance. A day without booze or fighting. A day to just be KIDS.Little did we know we were to encounter the male counterparts of the twins from “The Shining”.We arrived at the beach at 8:00, before the crowds had swooped in to claim all the prime realestate. We set up our blanket, cooler and boom box (that's a square metal box with a tuning knob that we used to pick up music via radio waves, to all you youngins out there) about ten feet beyond the cusp of where the damp packed sand ended and the dry fluffy sand began. This gave us optimal access to both sand castle building materials, and snacks.So Ryan and I set about building a sand castle, no, a SAND KINGDOM in that dampened section of sand. We worked diligently for a couple of hours, until we'd forged a hold fitting of the Iron Thrown itself. We had even irrigated a moat around the hold that would fill up as the outstretched fingers of waves crawled towards the embankment and spilled into the channels.It was glorious.Suddenly a foot came stomping down onto the roof of our tavern.. AND THEY WERE BAKING MINCE MEAT PIES!!I looked up and there stood what had to have been an incarnation of the Antichrist. Two identical twins, about 15–16 years old, with spikey blonde hair and six freckles apiece. They were grinning maniacally through their matching snaggle tooths ( that's not a typo. They had snaggle TOOTHS). They were the embodiment of every teen bully from every cheesy 80’s movie of all time. They were Johnny from Cobra Kai mixed with Junior from Problem Child, mixed with the douchebag little league team from The Sandlot.I hated them instantly.“Your times up, DOUCHEBAGS!” said the first Bobbsy twin.“Yeah, this is OUR area now DOUCHEBAGS!” (It quickly became apparent that these kids had trademarked the term “douchebags”)Ryan politey looked up (and polite was and still IS a tremendous gesture of Goodwill coming from Ryan). “Yo guys, there's plenty of room, and we got extra tools if you wanna help us build this kingdom up!”“No, you douchebags had your turn here.”“Bro,” I chimed in, “You have a full beach here. You're really gonna be punks and try to start a fight over this little section?!?”“This whole beach is ours now” with a spoiled rotten punk snear…. “”Johnny, go ahead.”Suddenly there's a six year old blonde spikey haired devil spawn with a big Tonka Bulldozer running roughshod all across our city. He trashed it,then looked me square in the eye and said, “Keep the change, ya filthy animal…”DID THIS MOTHER FUCKER REALLY JUST QUOTE HOME ALONE AT ME?!?!?!?Then his brothers joined in, kicking down the towers the bulldozer had missed.Now, Ryan and I ran with a very very rough group. We trained in boxing and American combat and sparred and fought every day. Furthermore, at Fourteen years old I stood a hair below six feet tall and weighed 240 lbs. I was considered the muscle of the group. Ryan was a polished fighter. We wanted nothing more than to TAKE THESE KIDS APART.HOWEVER; my mother had a strict no fighting policy and due to her addictions, we had to abide her rules when in her presence, lest my sister suffer her wrath later that evening.And so I pulled Ryan aside and reminded him, “No fighting”.Begrudgingly, he agreed.We did our best to avoid these assholes, but they were just being nightmares to others on the beach. For instance, they were making softball sized cannon balls with wet sand and drying them out on their mothers (who was pounding wine coolers) blanket. Once they were dried and heavy, they would launch them into crowds of people, and they HURT. After a few times, Ryan and I tried to talk to these punks again. We were well received with sandballs to the face. They SUCKED. The impact was like a right hook to the jaw, but then they'd explode, spewing sand into our eyes, ears, nose and mouth!!As the onslaught continued to reign down on our heads, Ryan managed to swipe the kids Tonka truck and we made for the ocean.We went out deep enough that Ryan had to stand on the truck to keep his face above water. The three brats stood at the edge of the sealine. They swore to a truce if we returned the truck.Brilliant strategy by Ryan, I thought. WRONG! Ryan picked up the truck and we were no more than halfway to the shore, when these geniuses decided to deliver a salvo of sandball artillery upon us!!IMMEDIATELY and instinctively, Ryan whirled around twice to build momentum and then he HURLED the Tonka truck deep into the fathoms of the Atlantic in what undoubtedly would have been a world record discuss toss!The demon-child shrieked with rage!This is when we were notified of harrowing truth our fates had in store for us;“Smart move, dipshits! We know KARATE!!”(DUH-DUH-DUHHHHHHHHH!!)The dreaded words of a true ULTIMATE douchenozzle.We get to the shore and the two wannabe Cobra Kai wierdo's are ready to square off with us. We just brush them off and go back to our blanket for some sun-melted bologna with sand on Wonderbread. As we sat there we watched these punks launching sand balls at people, knocking kids over and at one point they even filled a Pringles can with wet sand, put it into a plastic shopping bag, swung it round like a sling, and then launched it into a crowd of people on the seashore, where it landed with a CRACK on a little girls shoulder. I thought for sure it shattered her clavicle! Watching her dad scoop her up and frantically look to console her was too much.Ryan said to me “Jerm, I'm sorry, but I don't give a fuck what your mom says, I gotta do something.”I said “Let's give her ONE chance to settle things “My mother thought she was a perennial Nobel peace prize nominee. She thought she was this enlightened being… must've been the booze.In any case I implored her to try to settle things her way before we were forced to intervene. So she made her way to the hitler-youth base camp, and she spoke to mama Gestapo. In a very friendly manner, she asked the mom to make the boys stop. The mother replied, “What're ya gonna do, boys will be boys!”My mother stormed back over as Ryan and I went for a walk. But mom had one last ditch ploy up her sleeve to salvage everyone's day here on Jones Beach.So she waited until the two anus-brains were walking by the blanket, and she offered them a soda and introduced herself with a cordial smile. She then asked if the boys could maybe tone it down a notch, because “quite frankly, I'm not sure how much longer my boys are going to restrain themselves.”The twins thought it over briefly and then recited the centuries old Celtic incantation for bringing death and pestilence to your doorstep.Let this be a lesson in war tactics for all of you non-irish readers.If you EVER want to get your ASS KICKED, all you need to do is tell a hard drinking Irish woman to go “fuck herself”. Maybe even sprinkle a little “c-nt” on top, just for good measure.Now. My ma' didn't like us fighting, for sure. But she liked being told to go fuck herself even less.So with that, we heard those sweet, sweet words, like the ringing of the bells, the lighting of the spires, THE BELLOW OF THE CONCH…..“BOYS!!! CLEANSE THEM OF THEIR SINS! PURGE THEM OF THEIR BEFOULED TEMPERAMENT; LEST THE SANDS RUN RED WITH BLOOD!!!!!”Ok, ok. Full disclosure, what she said was, “Boys, go kick their asses!”. But it sounds much better my way.But i digress…Goosebumps spread across my flesh like wild fire. Ryan and I shared a moment, just long enough to acknowledge one another's half grin…The dogs were off the leash baby! (Que slow motion fist bump with pyrotechnics going off in the background and the cheesey 80's montage music).So we turned our gaze slowly towards these horrible punks, puffed out our chests, balled our fists and immediately ate two of the most devastating sandballs ever created by man. Smacked us right in the face.I was hit directly between the eyes, disorienting me. Ryan was hit directly in his eye and was immediately BLINDED. He dropped to one knee trying to clear the sand from his eyes (Ryan had always had issues with his eyes, which required him to apply eyedrops frequently throughout the day). As he was doubled over, a second sand ball exploded on his ear, clogging his ear and deafining him.My sister ran down and took his hands and pulled him off to the side to try to cleanse his eyes with bottled water.I, meanwhile, was trying to brush sand out of my eyes when I heard my sisters friend hollar “Jeremy, behind you!!” just as I was hit with a running jumpkick in the middle of my back. Being the man-child I was, the kick had no effect, and the kids must've noticed because they immediately went back to pelting me with more sandballs from all angles rather than trying to physically assault me. Even the little shit of a toddler was launching them. I couldn't see anything, and had no idea what angles I was being pelted from. All i could muster the clarity to think was:1- Where did these assholes learn how to make mortar shells out of beach sand? Did they take a course? Did they see it on MacGuyver? Who does this?!2- WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO RUN OUT OF FUCKING AMMO??? It was like they had Santas magic bag, but instead of toys for the whole world, it was full of god damned sandballs!!But, finally, finally, there was a pause in the salvo. I brushed my eyes JUST ENOUGH to see one of the brothers standing DIRECTLY in front of me, arm cocked, prepared to launch a killshot from point-blank range!!!OK, READER. YOU'VE WAITED LONG ENOUGH!! HERE IS WHERE I DID SOMETHING VERY NICE TO A NOT NICE PERSON TO PUT AN END TO THIS MASSACRE WE WERE RECEIVING!!“No, no, no…no more bro. Please, you win. Just let me get my friend, and we'll just leave. Please. You guys are no fuckin joke. I'm sorry…” (SEE?!? I WAS BEING NICE!!)He stood before me, with a quizzical look in his eye.“You had enough?”“Yeah man, those sandballs hurt. My mouth is bleeding, I can't see… I just wanna go home.”“Ok…” arm still cocked beside his head, ready to launch…The other twin comes running up on my right side ready to attack me again, but his brother turns his gaze to him, and stops him.“Chill, chill, it's squashed. These faggots are done. They're gonna boun…” POW!!!!!!I THREW A SHORT RIGHT HOOK INTO HIS HAND, SMASHING HIS SANDBALL IN HIS OWN FACE, AND DROPPING HIM LIKE 130 lbs of shit.As he lay motionless in the sand, I turned to face the other asshole. I could see the fear set in as he realized his backup was no longer available to protect him, and he was face to face with someone twice his size and SEETHING with rage. He glanced down at the two sandballs still in his hands, then looked at me, then the sandballs again… finally he stood up straight, looked me dead in the eye…and slammed those sandballs down to the ground as he he took off running like a bat outta hell! He was running east-bound, along the edge of where the ocean met the sand. I took off after him, but I was built for smashing, not chasing, and it quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to catch this kid. I was chugging along at max speed but he was just pulling away.I felt rage. I felt utter disappointment. Failure. This little shit had hurt so many people, and I finally have the chance to do something about it, and I was letting him get awa--RATATATATATA“MOOOOVE OVA JURMEEEEEE!!!!”The voice sounded like a lunch whistle bellowing at a quarry.“JURMEEEEEE GET OUT THE WAY JURMEEEEEE!!!!!”RATATATATAT…was this the sound of a toy machine gun blaring behind me? Firecrackers maybe??“JURMEEEEEE!! DA FUK OUT DA WAY!! MOVE JURMEEEEEE!!”RATATATATAT….It took a moment to register what I was hearing.Clearly Ryan was bellowing for me to move. But what's that sound? It was drawing nearer…Suddenly be I realized. IT WAS THE SOUND OF RYANS FEET SLAPPING THE EDGE OF THE WATER AT SUPERSONIC SPEED! (RYAN WAS THE MOST FIT AND HARDEST TRAINING PERSON OUT OF ALL OF OUR RUFFIAN FRIENDS, AND HE COULD FREAKING FLY)He was running so fast, he couldn't go around me because he would hydroplane and go sprawling!I moved one step inland, to my left, and sure enough he blew past me like I was standing still. He had closed the gap from where his eyes were being rinsed to 100 yards down the beach in a matter of seconds. Which said two things.1) he's very fast.2) he's fuckin PISSED.In a blink he was on the kids heals. He could've easily tackled him, but he opted to go completely airborne, delivering a “Phenomenal Forearm” to the small of the kids neck and DRIVING him face first into the sand, driving all of his body weight into the back of the boys skull as they slid across the flesh piercing sand. Ryan then stood him up, and knocked him backwards a few feet into the ocean, with a savage straight right hand. Just as Ryan stood above him to begin raining punches, the other twin came flying past me (yes I was very slow, I get it) and he jumps on Ryan's back, looking to wrap his arms around Ryan's neck. But I wrapped my arms around his torso from behind, took a few steps backwards and German suplexed his ass in about a foot of water. No need to go into detail of the fight unless you all feel you'd like to know, but let's just say we kicked THE CRAP out of those kids. And it was GLORIOUS. I opted to go for the water board/face punch technique. Thats equal parts choking someone underwater and then punching them repeatedly in the mouth each time you let them up for air. You just repeat until you've aquired the desired level of grovelling. Ryan opted for the Apollo technique. Thats where you wallop someone about their face until the look like Rocky Balboa after his fight with Creed. The kids' mother was now standing next to my mother at the waters edge, pleading with her, “Make them stop! Make them stop!”My mother, arms folded and expressionless watching her lads at work simply responded, “boys will be boys.”Finally my mother called us off, and we dragged the karate masters out of the water so they could gasp for air on the sand. They immediately embraced each other… they were crying and pretty banged up. One of them actually had the nerve to say, while sobbing and spitting out teeth, “We dont fight! We KILL!”Sure ya do buddy.Sure ya do.Seeing how badly beaten up they were, i thought we would for sure be in some trouble… but that's when I noticed the huge crowd of beach goers that had gathered all around us. And they were CHEARING! They gave us a standing ovation!! Some were making comments telling the kids they got what they deserved. All the folks they'd terrorized had gathered round, and were voicing their pleasure. The father of the little girl pelted with the pringles can was holding her in her little pink bathing suit and sun hat, with an ice pack on her shoulder. He stopped me as we walked through the crowd and thanked us for defending all the kids that had been victimized by the delinquents.Suddenly the demon child appeared beside his mother and yelled some indecipherable gibberish and raised his hand to throw another sandball! But i suppose his tipsy mamma had finally had enough humiliation, because she caught his outstretched hand' lifted him onto his tippie-toes and paddled his little ass with a shoe. A good, long, thorough whooping. God forgive me, but it was magnificent.And then the beach patrol started heading towards us on their quads, so we made a run for it lol.I make it a point to never glorify violence in my writing, but sometimes when addressing an issue, it is unavoidable. In these circumstances, however, I try not to glorify the actual act of the fighting. If ive offended anyone with this slightly violent somewhat lighthearted story, well all i can say is ive got a sandball here with your name on it, pal.Just kidding!Happy reading, all.Please forgive the typos. I'm having a terrible time with my keypad and the predictive text. Feel free to correct them if they are too irritating. Also, my content isnt turning up in people's suggestions for some reason, so if you like the story please share it. Thank you all.

My husband passed away during a long haul Air NZ flight between Los Angeles and Auckland NZ. We were in business class and he went to sleep in a lie flat sleeper seat and did not wake up. He died of hypoxia - lack of oxygen due to chronic lung disease and a recent bout of pneumonia. When he would not wake up I got a flight steward who then went and fetched a passenger who was a Doctor. He performed the usual signs of life tests and declared him deceased approximately 4 hours prior to landing. He stayed in his sleeper seats covered with a blanket for the rest of the journey and I lay beside him and held him until we landed.Upon landing the plane was cleared of everyone except crew myself and Keith. A hoarse of people then boarded the aircraft - police, customs, paramedics, the coroner, immigration, airline management, airport management and others I cannot remember. He was removed using the opposite side front door and a scissor lift as he had been placed in a stretcher.Interestingly his death certificates states the time and place of death as the time he was examined and declared dead in the air and the place of death states Flight NZ5 between Los Angeles and Auckland. Due to there being a doctor on board he officially died in the air on a plane. All AirNZ aircraft carry the appropriate documentation for this.The Airline staff were wonderful as there is a procedure for this event. I was assigned a “minder” who stayed with me for the rest of the flight. She came with me to the police station after we landed. I had a connecting flight to another city in NZ which she rebooked for me and she even offered to come with me to my home to make sure I was OK. I cannot thank them enough.It was traumatic, but I had 4 hours of time with him to say goodbye which I would not have had on land. It was also comforting to know that there were others with me even though they were strangers because they did not intrude but were very supportive.

One question I am often asked regarding trademarks whenever I discuss IP law with a group of young budding students, entrepreneurs or startup companies is “How to register a trademark in India?”. There are several articles and blogs that explains how to register a trademark in India in one way or the other but I hope that this post will be comprehensive enough to answer most of them.A trademark is anyword (PEPSI, COCO COLA, PEPSODENT),name (RAYMOND VEIL, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN),surname (TATA, BATA, BAJAJ),signature (LOUIS PHILIPPE),letters (BMW, IBM, HDFC),numeral (555, 501),symbol (MERCEDES BENZ THREE POINTED STAR, ADDIDAS PYRAMID),device (AMUL GIRL, PILLSBURY BOY),color scheme (PIZZA HUT, DOMINOS),packaging (CADBURY’S),shape of goods (COCO COLA BOTTLE)or any combination thereof that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.When the mark is used in respect of services then the mark is also commonly referred to as Service Mark. Ex: DHL, HILTON, INFOSYS are service marks. However, since the distinction between goods and services are not always clear, the term trademark is often used to include service marks as well.What is classification of goods and services or classes?When you file an application for registration of a trademark you need to mention the list of goods/services for which you intend to use your trademark. India follows an international system of classification called the “Nice Classification” according to which the goods and services are categorized into 45 classes, with goods covered in classes 1 to 35 and services covered under classes 36 to 45.If the trademark is AMUL the goods for which it is used are “cheeses” and the class will be “29″. Likewise if the trademark is EXPEDIA the services for which it is used are “Online reservations and information regarding travel etc” and the class will be 39.If you do not know which class or classes your goods or services fall in, please use the Classification search tool euroclass or the list of goods/services as published by the Indian trademark office.Search the records of the Indian Trademark Office – Online!Prevention is better than cure. Before you file an application for or consider using your trademark, search the records of the Indian trademark office to check if someone has already chosen the same or a similar trademark. You will have to search the exact class of goods and services for which you will be using your trademark. If you see any similar trademarks already on the records of the trademark office, it should raise a red flag! You will now have to carefully analyze each and every trademark and take a call on going forward with the same mark or possibly changing your trademark so that you don’t infringe another’s trademark rights.Search using Google.One of the best things that happened in this century– Punch in your trademark at Google and viola! Magic! Merely because a trademark is not filed for registration with the trademark office, does not mean it is available for you to take. In a common law country like India, usage of a trademark gets importance over filing an application/obtaining registration for a trademark. Search using Google and see if anyone is using the trademark you want to adopt. If you see a similar mark do a bit of research to see how much they have used their mark, period of usage, goods or services for which is it used, has the mark gained any reputation etc. More importantly, compare the marks yourself and decide whether your trademark will infringe the rights of the other person. Your few minutes of research will save you from the risk of choosing deceptively similar marks, resulting in lengthy oppositions and infringement action costing time and money. a. File an application with the trademark office.Congratulations! You have cleared the first two hurdles. Give yourself a pat on the back for discovering that you are going to have exclusive rights on your trademark, and proceed with filing a trademark application. You can either file a paper application with the Indian Trademark Office (TMO) or file an application online at http://ipindia.nic.in. You will require a digital signature and an Axis/SBI bank account for filing the application online. The official fee is INR.3500 (approx USD 70) per mark/class.If you are a foreign entity who wants to protect your trademark in India, consider claiming priority.India is a member to the Paris Convention and signatory to the TRIPS agreement. Hence an application can be filed in India claiming priority from the application filed in a foreign country, provided the foreign application was filed not earlier than 6 months from the date of filing the application in India.Required information:a. Name of the person/organization that will own the rights to the trademark (applicant);b. Address of the applicant;c. Nature of business of the applicant; (Ex:Manufacturers, Merchants, Traders, Service Providers)d. Trademark;e. Class;f. Specification of goods or services;g. Date of first use of your mark in India;h.When priority is claimed:(i) Priority date;(ii) Priority application number;Priority Country.Required documents:a. Application form in duplicate;b. Representation sheet in duplicate;c. When priority is claimed:(i) Certified copy of the priority application.d. Official fee by way of cheque/demand draft or cash.Trademark Offices and their Jurisdiction:There are five trademark offices in India and in which office your application is to be filed depends on your registered office address. If you do not have an address in India then the trademark office is decided on the basis of the address of your legal counsel.The jurisdiction of each trademark office is as follows:Mumbai – State of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and GoaNew Delhi – State of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territory of Delhi and ChandigarhKolkatta – State of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Sikkim , Tripura and Union Territory of Nagaland, Andamar & Nicobar Island.Ahmedabad – State of Gujarat and Rajasthan and Union Territory of Damman, Diu, Dadra and Nagar HaveliChennai – State of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Union Territory of Pondicherry and Lakshadweep Island.Once the application is filed the trademark office issues a filing receipt and one copy of the representation sheet stamped with the application number and the filing date as proof of filing the application. You can thereafter see the status of your trademark application online using the application number.b. Examination of your trademark application.In approximately seven to nine months the trademark office will send you the examination report either citing the objections consisting of absolute or relative grounds or both, or, in the absence of any objections allowing the application to be published in the upcoming trademarks journal for a third party to raise objections to the registration. The time to respond to the examination report is 30 days from the receipt of the same and this deadline cannot be extended. So it is important that you file a response with the trademark office within the deadline of 30 days.The objections under absolute grounds are that– your trademark is not distinctive; i.e.: your trademark is not capable of distinguishing the goods and or services of one person from those of others.– your trademark is descriptive or devoid of any distinctive character; i.e.: your trademark directly refers to the goods or services for which the protection is sought. Ex: Trademark FAIRBEAUTY filed for cosmetics under class 03 cannot be registered.– your trademark is a generic term or is customary to trade; Ex: APPLE for fruits, SOFTWARE for software services cannot be registered.The objections under absolute grounds can be over come by stating that your trademark has acquired distinctiveness by extensive usage over a period of time and that the public in general, identifies your product or service by your trademark and that the public identifies only you in relation to your trademark and no one else. Documentary evidence is required to be filed in support of your claim along with your response.The objections under relative grounds are: the existence of similar trademarks on the records of the trademark office.The objections under relative grounds can be over come by stating that your trademark is different from the other cited marks in the examination report.In what ways your trademark is different from the others needs to be explained in detail. Submission of documentary evidence of extensive usage of your trademark will also help you to strengthen your case.c. Hearing before the examiner.In about six months from filing your response to the examination report, the trademark office will either allow the application to be published in the upcoming trademarks journal for a third party to raise objections to the registration or fix a hearing by sending you a hearing notice with a date and time to meet the examiner and explain why your trademark should be allowed to proceed towards registration. This opportunity should be exploited to explain to the examiner, the evidences filed at the time of responding to the examination report in detail and to submit additional evidence. Subsequently the examiner will pass an order either allowing or refusing registration of your application. If it is a refusal, you can appeal against the order of the examiner before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) with 15 days of such refusal.d. Publication of the application in the trademarks journal.Within two to three weeks from the date of the examiner’s order to publish the trademark, the trademark application is published in the trademarks journal. You can download the trademark journal and check if your mark has been advertised. After the expiry of four months from the date of publication of the trademarks journal in which your mark was published, check the status of your trademark application online and if there are no objections to your trademark by way of oppositions filed by any other person, write a follow up letter to the trademark office requesting registration of your trademark and issuance of your trademark registration certificate.In the event of any person raising an objection to your trademark application by way of an opposition, the trademark office will notify you of the objection along with the copy of the notice of opposition as filed by the other party. Opposition proceedings are complicated and we suggest that you consult your legal counsel.e. Registration of your trademark and issuance of the registration certificate.If no objections are received by way of oppositions to your trademark application within this four month period, the trademark office will grant registration to your trademark and issue the registration certificate. Once you receive the registration certificate peruse the contents of the certificate to ensure that there is no discrepancy in the data and in case of any, bring it to the attention of the examiner and have it rectified.f. Renewal of your trademark registration.Every trademark registration is valid for a period of ten years from the date of filing the application. An application for renewal of a trademark registration can be made six months prior to the expiry of the registration. The renewal fee is INR 5000 (approx USD 100) per mark/class. A trademark can be renewed every ten years and thereby protected indefinitely.With an economy of a billion people, you should consider applying for a trademark registration at the nascent stage of your business to avoid time consuming and expensive litigation to protect your rights.Raja Selvam - rselvam@selvamandselvam.in