Delhi High Court Orders Restoration Of 'BLUE CHIP' Trademark, Holds Removal Without Notice Invalid

The Delhi High Court on 4 August directed the Trade Marks Registry to restore the trademark 'BLUE CHIP' belonging to Amrit Singh Mehta, trading as Mehta Cosmetics, after finding that the mark was removed from the Register without issuing the mandatory notice required under Section 25(3) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999.

A Bench of Justice Jyoti Singh allowed Mehta's petition and held that the Registry's failure to issue the prescribed notice before removal of the mark violated the statutory requirement under the Trade Marks Act. She observed:

“mere expiration of trademark registration by lapse of time and/or failure of registered proprietors to get renewal, does not ipso facto justify the removal of the mark from the Register.”

Section 25(3) of the Trade Marks Act requires the Registrar to issue a formal notice to the trademark owner before removing a mark from the Register after expiry of its registration period.

The petitioner had filed an application for registration of the trademark on 21 July 1992. The mark was registered only on 3 August 2005, nearly 13 years later. She claimed that he never received the registration certificate.

In the absence of a renewal application, the mark was removed from the Register, with its status recorded in the Trade Marks Journal on 16 June 2010 as “Expired on 21.07.2002 & Removed.” Mehta filed multiple applications under the Right to Information Act to ascertain whether any communication regarding registration or renewal had been issued.

In its response dated 10 October 2025, the Registry stated that renewal notices are issued only after the date of registration and that no such notice was generated since the registration itself took place after the renewal date had already expired. A further RTI response dated 24 December 2025 stated that the despatch particulars were “not traceable” as per the physical file records.

Mehta argued that Rule 64(3) of the Trade Marks Rules, 2002 provided a six-month window from the actual date of registration, that is, until 3 February 2006, to apply for renewal.

The Court noted that the Registry's own RTI responses did not dispute the petitioner's claim regarding non-receipt of the registration certificate, observing that “the stand of the Petitioner of non-receipt of the certificate is uncontroverted.” It held that since the petitioner had no knowledge of the registration, he “cannot be blamed for not filing the renewal application.”

It also relied on the Delhi High Court's earlier decision in Rakesh Kumar Mittal v. Registrar of Trade Marks (2025), wherein it was held that issuance of notice under Section 25(3) before removal of a trademark is a mandatory pre-condition. Applying the said principle, the Bench held:

“Admittedly Form-O2 notice was not sent to the Petitioner before removing its mark BLUE CHIP from the Register and thus there is a clear violation of Section 25(3) of 1999 Act.”

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the writ petition and directed the Trade Marks Registry to restore and reinstate the registration of the trademark 'BLUE CHIP'.