Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Act, 1927

Requisites for registration in Part A.

82.—(1) In order to be capable of registration in Part A of the register, a trade mark must contain or consist of at least one of the following essential particulars:—

(a) the name of a company, individual, or firm represented in a special or particular manner;

(b) the signature of the applicant for registration or some predecessor in his business;

(c) an invented word or invented words;

(d) a word or words having no direct reference to the character or quality of the goods, and not being according to its ordinary signification a geographical name or a surname;

(e) any other distinctive mark, but a name, signature, or word or words, other than such as fall within the descriptions in the above paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d), shall not be registrable under the provisions of this paragraph, except upon evidence of its distinctiveness.

(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of the foregoing sub-section, any special or distinctive word or words, letter, numeral, or combination of letters or numerals used as a trade mark by the applicant or his predecessors in business before the thirteenth day of August one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, which has continued to be used (either in its original form or with additions or alterations not substantially affecting the identity of the same) down to the date of the application for registration shall be registrable as a trade mark under this Act.

(3) For the purposes of this section “distinctive” shall mean adapted to distinguish the goods of the proprietor of the trade mark from those of other persons, and in determining whether a trade mark is so adapted, the tribunal may, in the case of a trade mark in actual use, take into consideration the extent to which such user has rendered such trade mark in fact distinctive for the goods with respect to which it is registered or proposed to be registered.