The troubles for the Office of the Controller General of Patent, Designs, and Trade Mark (CGPDTM) just don’t seem to end anytime soon. In yet another “out of the frying pan and into the fire” situation for the CGPDTM, after the corruption allegation (covered here), the Delhi High Court passed an order on 7 March 2024 in IPAA v CGPDTM seeking directions for the suspension of Trademark Registry related limitation periods till the complete resumption of the services of the website/portal of the Trademark Registry.
Apparently, the trademark registry’s website has been malfunctioning a bit too often since late 2023. Initially, there were persistent issues plaguing the access to the e-filing page and public search page (discussed here). After a lot of hue and cry on the matter, the services were eventually restored. However, the issue seems to have persisted with the payment gateway, guidelines materials, and external site access.
In the January 2024 order by the DHC on this matter, the court noted the urgency in resolving the unavailability of public search and E-Register features, given that the Trademark Registry, cannot possibly be operating under an outdated system.
A few days later, the CGPDTM announced that the public search and E-registry features were working again and would be available 24/7 without any time restrictions starting from 1st February 2024 (discussed here). However, on 5th March, another public notice was issued, informing stakeholders that due to maintenance activity, the e-filing services and payment gateway for Patents, Designs, GI, and Trademarks would remain unavailable. An application against this notice was filed before the court where the IP Attorney Association brought to light certain other issues like difficulty in accessing modules such as the First Examination Report, Counter-Statement, Notice, etc., available on the website; Unavailability of hearing notices; and lagging or unavailable payment gateways. Below are the screenshots, as presented in the order showing the lagging payment interface on the website.
Otherwise, currently, the links, manuals, guidelines downloads, and services (under the “related links” section) on the Registry’s website seem to be in order and accessible prima facie, except for the “Requests for correction of TM records collection” link that shows an error (images below).
Another link that was inaccessible was the “TLA Allotted Hearing Board” under the head “Hearing Board” (images below).
The Court has asked the Controller General or any other senior officers deputed by the Controller General to appear before it and discuss what can be done to resolve the technical glitches. The Court has also requested the Senior Counsel to compile a list of issues that have arisen in the Intellectual Property Association’s understanding over the past few months, along with suggesting solutions for these issues.
The case was listed for further proceedings on 11th March 2024 (however, the order has not been uploaded on the High Court website yet). Hopefully, this issue with the Registry’s website is resolved soon and quick action is taken to facilitate a conducive deliberative process to achieve a solution, given the critical urgency of getting the website back on track. These glitches not only squander trademark lawyers’ time in having to go through cause lists for updates due to the unavailability of hearing notices but also cause inconvenience to the public who rely solely on the website for the registration, updating, and correction services that are currently unavailable.