"Formalities Chk Fail" is not a rejection. "Accepted" is not a registration. And "Abandoned" can happen quietly, while you wait for an email that was never going to come.
The Indian Trade Marks Registry publishes the live status of every application on its portal, in a vocabulary it never explains. Founders check the page, see three unfamiliar words, and either panic over nothing or relax past a deadline. Both mistakes are expensive — some statuses are cosmetic, and some start clocks that kill applications in 30 days.
This is the decoder: every major status on the ipindia portal, what it actually means, and what — if anything — you must do when you see it.
Checking your status in two minutes
Go to the official portal at ipindia.gov.in, open the Trade Marks section, and use the application status search with your application number — the number issued the day your Form TM-A was filed. The page shows the mark, class, applicant, key dates and the current status line, plus scanned documents like the examination report.
Two habits make the check useful. First, look at the documents, not just the status word — the exam report or notice behind the status tells you what to do. Second, check monthly at minimum: the Registry sends notices to the address on record, and applicants who moved offices or filed through a defunct agent routinely learn about deadlines only from the portal.
The Registry will not chase you. The status page is the chase.
The filing stages: your application settles in
- New Application. The application has been received and numbered. Nothing to do — this is day zero of the pipeline described in our step-by-step guide to trademark registration.
- Send to Vienna Codification. Appears for logo and device marks. The figurative elements are being coded under the Vienna classification so future examiners can search similar logos. Routine, automatic, and no action needed.
- Formalities Chk Pass. The clerical check cleared: the power of attorney is in order, translations and transliterations are attached, the application is complete. The file now queues for examination.
- Formalities Chk Fail. A document is missing or defective — most often the power of attorney, a missing translation of a non-English mark, or a defective user affidavit. This is fixable. The Registry issues a notice; respond with the corrected document within the time it grants. Ignore it, and a fixable defect matures into abandonment.
The examination stages: where objections happen
- Marked for Exam. The file has been allocated to an examiner. Examination reports typically follow within a few months. Nothing to do yet.
- Exam Report Issued / Objected. The examiner has raised objections — usually under Section 9 (descriptive or non-distinctive marks) or Section 11 (conflict with earlier marks). The clock is now running: you have 30 days from receipt of the report to file a reply. This is the single most dangerous status on the portal, covered in detail in our guide to the 30-day objection reply deadline. A professionally drafted objection reply resolves most examination objections without ever reaching a hearing.
- Ready for Show Cause Hearing. Your reply did not fully persuade the examiner, and the application is queued for a hearing before a Registry officer — now mostly held over video conference. Not a rejection: a large share of marks are accepted at the hearing stage. Watch the cause lists and appear, prepared.
- Refused. The Registrar has refused the application by a reasoned order, usually after a hearing. Remedies exist — a review, or an appeal to the High Court since the IPAB's abolition in 2021 — but timelines run from the order date. Act within weeks, not months.
"Objected" with 30 days left is a task. "Objected" discovered on day 29 is a crisis.
Advertisement and opposition: the public gets its say
- Accepted. The examiner or hearing officer is satisfied. The mark now awaits publication in the Trade Marks Journal.
- Accepted & Advertised (or Advertised bef acc). The mark has been published in the weekly Trade Marks Journal. Publication opens the 4-month opposition window in which any third party can oppose the registration. "Advertised before acceptance" is a variant where the Registrar advertises a mark before formally accepting it — for the applicant, the effect is the same: wait out the window. No opposition in 4 months means the mark proceeds to registration.
- Opposed. Someone filed a notice of opposition on Form TM-O. You will receive it, and you must file a counter-statement within 2 months — miss that, and the application is treated as abandoned, no matter how strong your case was. Opposition is a full adversarial proceeding with evidence rounds and a hearing; our trademark opposition team and the companion guide to the opposition process in India map the whole road.
One nuance worth knowing: opposition is common for valuable-looking marks and is not a verdict. It means a competitor noticed you. Many oppositions settle or collapse at the evidence stage.
The endgame statuses
- Registered. The destination. The certificate issues, you may lawfully use the ® symbol, and protection runs for 10 years from the application date, renewable indefinitely. Diarise the renewal now — a decade is exactly long enough to forget, and trademark renewal filed on time is a formality while a lapsed mark is a rescue operation.
- Withdrawn. The applicant pulled the application — often part of a settlement or a rebrand. Terminal for this application, but nothing stops a fresh filing.
- Abandoned. The Registry treated the application as given up, almost always because a deadline passed silently: no reply to the exam report, no counter-statement, no appearance at a hearing. This is the most preventable death in the system. Limited remedies exist where the notice itself never reached you, but prevention — watching the portal — costs nothing.
- Removed. Seen against registered marks that were not renewed. The registration has lapsed and been removed from the register. Restoration is possible within limited timelines after removal, on payment of additional fees.
Applications rarely lose. They expire — one unread notice at a time.
Staring at a status you don't understand? Send us your application number and we'll decode it — and the deadline behind it — for free.
Decode my trademark status →The statuses that demand action this week
Strip the vocabulary away and the portal sorts into three buckets:
- Act now — a clock is running. Objected / Exam Report Issued (30 days to reply), Opposed (2 months for the counter-statement), Ready for Show Cause Hearing (appear on the listed date), Formalities Chk Fail (cure the defect within the notice period), Refused (appeal timelines running).
- Watch — the system is working. New Application, Send to Vienna Codification, Formalities Chk Pass, Marked for Exam, Accepted, Advertised. Keep checking; do nothing else.
- Decide — the road ended. Registered (diarise renewal), Abandoned, Withdrawn, Removed (choose between revival remedies and a fresh filing).
Before filing anything new, it is also worth running the mark through a free trademark search — many statuses in bucket three trace back to conflicts a pre-filing search would have flagged. And if you are still at the starting line, our trademark registration service handles the filing and every status that follows it.
The status page is free, public and updated for you. Read it before your competitor does.
Learn the vocabulary once, check the portal monthly, and treat every red-flag status as a deadline with a name. Trademarks in India are rarely lost on the merits — they are lost by applicants who stopped watching the page that was watching their brand.
Your brand is only yours when you file it.
10,000+ Indian brands filed with IPForte. 48-hour turnaround. 130+ countries via Madrid Protocol. First call is free, no commitment.