Trademark Renewal: What It Involves and When It's Due

A trademark registration in India lasts 10 years from the filing date and can be renewed indefinitely — but renewal is an active step you have to take, not something that happens automatically. This guide covers the mechanics: when to file, what's involved, and what happens if a deadline is missed.

Where renewal fits

Renewal is Phase 5 of what we cover in our guide to the full trademark lifecycle — the point where a 10-year cycle either continues or, if neglected, quietly lapses. It's worth understanding on its own terms because it's one of the most common ways a perfectly valid registration is lost: not through a legal challenge, but through a missed date.

When to file

Renewal is filed on Form TM-R, and it can be submitted up to a year before the registration's 10-year term expires. There's no benefit to waiting until the deadline is close — filing early removes the risk of a processing delay or an internal oversight causing you to miss it altogether. The deadline itself is simple arithmetic — 10 years out from the filing date — but worth calendaring the moment you receive your registration certificate rather than trusting memory over a decade.

What the renewal process actually involves

Unlike the original application, renewal doesn't trigger a fresh substantive examination of the mark — you're not being re-assessed against absolute or relative grounds the way a new application is. It's a procedural filing confirming continued ownership and payment of the renewal fee, which is a separate government fee from the original filing fee (confirm the current figure with the Registry at the time you renew, since fee schedules are revised periodically).

If the mark has changed ownership since the original filing — through a trademark assignment that wasn't recorded — renewal is also the point where that gap tends to surface, since the Registry's records need to reflect who's actually renewing the mark.

What happens if you miss the deadline

If a registration isn't renewed by its expiry date, the Registry can remove it from the register. There is a limited restoration window afterward, but restoration involves an additional fee, isn't guaranteed, and leaves the mark legally exposed for as long as the gap lasts — including the risk that someone else files for the same or a similar mark while yours has lapsed. Treat the renewal deadline with the same seriousness as an examination report deadline: both convert a routine administrative step into a real loss of rights if missed.

Why renewal gets overlooked

A 10-year cycle is long enough that the people who filed the original application are often no longer the ones managing the business, and paperwork from a decade ago is easy to lose track of. This is precisely why renewal tracking needs to be built into how a mark is actively managed, not left to whoever happens to notice the certificate is getting old — see our guide on why "filing only" isn't the same as "protected" for the broader version of this point.

Renewal across multiple classes or marks

If you hold registrations across several classes, or several related marks (a word mark and a logo, for example), each registration has its own 10-year term and its own renewal deadline, calculated from its own filing date. Businesses with a growing portfolio of marks benefit from tracking these centrally rather than per-registration, since staggered filing dates mean renewal deadlines don't line up neatly on a single calendar date.

For the process that leads up to registration, see our trademark registration guide. For how often renewal is actually due and what a missed deadline costs, see how often do I need to renew my trademark. Renewal keeps a registration alive on paper — actually using the mark is a separate obligation; see our complete guide to defending a registered trademark for what non-use cancellation risk looks like and how to stay protected against it.