Documents Required for Trademark Registration: What to Keep Ready Before You File TM-A

FORM TM-A itself is not a long form. What slows trademark filings down is the evidence file behind it. The examiner does not ask for most of these papers on day one. Your fee slab, your right to claim an early date, and your claim that you were already using the mark all stand or fall on documents that either exist on filing day or do not. I have seen clean applications stall for months because a recognition certificate was applied for after the TM-A went in, and I have seen prior-use claims collapse because the oldest invoice in the file was younger than the date claimed. Both were avoidable. Both were decided before anyone opened the portal.

So this guide is only about the pre-filing file: what to keep ready, by who you are as an applicant. It does not re-run the process or the calendar. For the calendar, read our guide on how long trademark registration actually takes. This page ends where filing begins.

Every applicant starts with the mark itself

Keep the exact mark ready, in the exact form you want protected. Rule 26(1) of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017 requires every application to carry a clear and legible representation of the trademark of a size not exceeding 8 cm × 8 cm. On the e-filing portal that representation is uploaded as an image file, in practice a clean JPEG for a logo or device mark. A word mark needs no artwork. It needs the word, spelled exactly as you use it, in plain text.

Decide the colour question before you file, not during. If you file the logo in colour and say nothing, you have filed that logo. If colour is part of what makes the mark yours, Rule 26(2) expects the application to carry a reproduction of the mark in that colour combination, with the claim stated. A black-and-white filing and a colour filing are different positions. Pick the one you will actually trade under.

Keep one more piece of information beside the artwork: the class numbers and the exact list of goods or services in each class. That list is typed into TM-A, not uploaded, but drafting it at the desk, in words that match what you sell, saves the sloppy specification that examiners object to later.

The individual and sole proprietor file

This is the lightest file, and it still trips people. TM-A asks for the applicant's full legal name, address, nationality and status. Keep a government identity proof and an address proof ready that match those entries letter for letter: PAN card or Aadhaar card, and a utility bill or similar proof for the address you file from. The form does not turn on these papers the way a bank account opening does, but a name on the application that differs from the name on your identity documents is the kind of small mismatch that draws a formality objection and costs you a round of correspondence.

A proprietor files as an individual. The business name is the mark's home, not the applicant. If the mark is the trade name of your proprietorship, the applicant is still you, personally, with the trade name stated. Get that the wrong way round and the proprietor on the register is an entity that does not exist in law.

Fee note for this file: an individual filing online pays ₹4,500 per class under the First Schedule to the Trade Marks Rules, 2017. No certificate is needed to earn that slab. It follows from who you are.

The startup and small enterprise file: one certificate, half the fee

The First Schedule puts startups and small enterprises in the same ₹4,500 e-filing slab as individuals, per class, against ₹9,000 per class for everyone else. That concession is not claimed by ticking a box and hoping. It is proved by a certificate that must exist when you file.

For a startup, the paper is the DPIIT recognition certificate. For a small enterprise, it is the Udyam registration certificate. Keep the certificate ready, in the applicant's own name, before the TM-A is drafted. A company that has applied for DPIIT recognition but not received it is, on filing day, an "other" applicant. It pays ₹9,000. The recognition arriving a month later does not refund the difference.

Check the name on the certificate against the applicant name on TM-A. They must be the same person in law. Recognition held by a founder personally does not discount a filing by his company.

The wider scheme behind these concessions, including the patent side and the facilitator route, is set out in our guide to startup IPR benefits and trademark discounts. Read it before you file, not after you have paid the higher slab.

The partnership and company file

An entity applicant adds two layers: proof that the entity exists, and proof that the human signing may sign for it.

For existence, keep the partnership deed for a firm, or the certificate of incorporation for a company or LLP, ready with the registered address exactly as it appears on that record. The applicant details in TM-A should be copied from the entity's own documents, not from a letterhead or a visiting card. Letterheads drift. Registers do not.

For signing authority, keep the authorisation ready: a board resolution or authorisation letter for a company, and an authorisation from the partners for a firm, naming the person who will sign the application and any agent's authorisation. Registry correspondence does not always demand to see this paper at filing. That is not the point. When a question of authority surfaces, in an opposition or an assignment years later, this is the paper that answers it, and reconstructing a resolution years later is a miserable job that convinces nobody.

Fee note for this file: companies, LLPs and firms that do not qualify as a small enterprise pay ₹9,000 per class on e-filing. Budget on that figure unless the Udyam certificate is already in the file.

Claiming use before the filing date: the user affidavit

This is the heaviest part of the file, and the part most often faked by optimism. If your TM-A says "proposed to be used", this section does not apply to you. File, and build your evidence from now on. If your TM-A claims a date of first use earlier than the filing date, Rule 25 of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017 applies in full.

Rule 25 does two things. The application must contain a statement of the period during which, and the person by whom, the mark has been used for the goods or services in the application. And where use is claimed from before the date of application, the applicant shall file an affidavit testifying to that use, along with supporting documents. Shall. It is not a garnish for strong applications. It is a condition of making the claim at all.

So keep three things ready. The affidavit itself, sworn by the applicant or a person who knows the facts, stating the mark, the class, the goods or services, and the exact date of first use. The specimens that prove the statement: sales invoices carrying the mark, advertisements, packaging, catalogue pages, dated screenshots. They must predate the filing date, and at least some of them should sit on or near the first-use date you claim. And consistency. The date in the affidavit, the date in TM-A and the dates on the specimens must tell one story.

Here is the comparison I use with clients. A first-use claim is a train ticket bought for a journey you say you have already taken. The affidavit is your statement that you travelled. The invoices and advertisements are the ticket stubs. A statement with no stubs gets you a polite hearing and no journey. If your oldest genuine specimen is from 2023, claim 2023, even if you are sure you used the name in 2021. A shorter honest history beats a longer one you cannot prove, every single time.

Filing through an agent: the authorisation paper

Most applicants file through a trademark agent or an advocate. Section 145 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 permits that, provided the agent is duly authorised in the prescribed manner. Rule 19 of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017 prescribes the manner: the authorisation of an agent shall be executed in FORM TM-M.

Read that again if you have been handed old checklists. The authorisation is not FORM TM-P. TM-P is the form family for assignment and other post-registration changes to a mark, a different job entirely, which our guide to assignment with FORM TM-P covers. Nor does the 2017 position rest on FORM TM-48, which belonged to the old 2002 Rules and still haunts photocopied checklists across the country. Under the current Rules: agent's authorisation, TM-M, Rule 19.

Practically, keep a signed and stamped authorisation ready before filing day. The document functions as a power of attorney: it lets the agent file, appear, and receive notices for you, and Rule 19(2) treats service of a document on the agent as service on you. Stamp it properly under the stamp law of the State where it is executed. An unstamped authorisation is a defect waiting for the worst possible moment to surface.

Claiming a foreign priority date: the convention papers

This file applies only if you filed the same mark in a convention country first. Section 154(2) of the Act gives you six months from that first filing to file in India and have the Indian application treated as filed on the foreign filing date. Six months. Count it from the earliest foreign filing if there is more than one, because section 154(3) counts the period from the earliest of them.

The paper that carries the claim is the priority document: a certificate from the Registrar or competent authority of that foreign trademark office, showing the mark, the country and the date or dates of filing. Rule 24 of the Trade Marks Rules, 2017 sets the timing. File the certificate with the Indian application if you have it. If you do not, Rule 24(2) gives you two months from the Indian filing date to file the document certifying or verifying the filing date, the country, the representation of the mark and the goods or services covered, and the application itself must state the filing date, the convention country and the serial number, with a statement that priority is claimed.

Order the certified copy the week you decide to file in India. Foreign offices issue these at their own pace, and the two-month window in Rule 24(2) is short. A priority claim lost to a slow courier is lost for good.

The file, on one desk, before you open TM-A

Assemble that file first and TM-A becomes a half-hour of typing. Assemble it later and the same application turns into months of formality objections, a fee slab you cannot recover, or a use claim you have to withdraw. Paper first. Portal second. If you would like us to check the file before anything is filed, our trademark team reviews the document set against the TM-A fields as part of the filing work, and tells you plainly if a claimed date or a missing certificate needs fixing first.