Legal references

Every source this docket calculates from, and where the sources disagree.

Every date this application produces comes from a rule, and every rule names its source. There are 31 of them. This page lists where they come from, in the order of authority the application applies when two sources disagree.

The order of authority

Where sources conflict, the application resolves them in this order and records what it displaced and why. It does not silently pick one.

1. A binding decision of a court — and binding means binding on the registry office the matter actually sits in. A High Court governs its own territory; the most recent decision anywhere is not automatically the answer everywhere.
2. The Trade Marks Act 1999.
3. The Trade Marks Rules 2017.
4. The Registrar's Manual of Trade Marks Practice and Procedure, which is guidance and is not law.
5. Ragulika's own practice, which is never presented as a statutory date and can never shorten one.

What the rules rest on

The principal sources

• Trade Marks Act 1999, and in particular sections 21, 23, 25, 47, 131 and 132.
• Trade Marks Rules 2017, and in particular rules 31, 33, 42, 45 to 47, 57 to 60 and 109.
• Manual of Trade Marks Practice and Procedure, as guidance only.
• Decisions of the High Courts of Delhi and Madras HC; Rules elsewhere, Bombay High Court, where they bear on a period.

Where the courts do not agree

The evidence periods in an opposition are the live example. The High Courts have taken different views on whether rules 45 to 47 are mandatory or directory, and which view applies to your matter depends on which registry office it sits in — Mumbai answers to Bombay, Delhi to Delhi, Chennai to Madras, Kolkata to Calcutta, Ahmedabad to Gujarat. The situs of the office decides it, not where the applicant lives.

The application therefore holds more than one rule for the same period, scoped by office, names the court on each side, and says which decision is the most recent in that jurisdiction. It does not average them and it does not pick a favourite.

Where the Manual is wrong

The Manual is guidance, and in 8 places the application does not follow it, because following it would produce a date the Act or the Rules do not support. Each of those is recorded with the passage, what is wrong with it, what it would cost a reader who followed it, and what the application does instead.

• Manual 3.2.2 — Examination reply period. Follows r.33(4) and runs the period from receipt.
• Manual 3.5.1.3 and 3.5.2 — Withdrawal of acceptance. Follows r.38(2), thirty days from receipt.
• Manual 3.3.4 — Show cause hearing notice sent "approximately 30 days before the date of hearing". Not seeded as a rule. It is a Registrar-side lead time, not a deadline on a party. What Disposafe actually supports — that the burden is on the Registry to prove delivery — is reflected in the engine declining to compute from an unrecorded receipt date.
• Manual 4.2.2 — Service of the notice of opposition "ordinarily within three months". The three months is recorded as Registry practice and not docketed as a party deadline. Coaster Shoes is cited on the rules where it belongs — the service-triggered evidence deadlines.
• Manual 3.2.1 — Treating an application as abandoned. Not relied on. The abandonment rules follow r.33(4) and s.132 directly.
• Manual 4.5.1.3 area — Non-use removal under s.47. The non-use rule rests on the statutory text of s.47(1)(b), which outranks the Manual regardless.
• Manual, Chapter 04 introduction — Chapter structure. No review petition timeline is seeded. It shows as a gap.
• Manual, throughout — Madrid Protocol. One rule is seeded, as registry practice rather than law, flagged conflicting, and does not cite the Manual.

Still open

Questions the application has not settled, and shows as unsettled rather than guessing at:

• File evidence supporting the rectification. STILL OPEN: r.98 says the applicant "shall file evidence ... under the provisions of rule 45(1)" once three months pass without a counterstatement, but does not say whether r.45(1)'s own two months then runs from that three-month point or whether the obligation is immediate. Ragulika dockets the three-month point itself so it is not missed; confirm the onward period with the Registry on the matter.
• Apply for a hearing on the Registrar's rectification notice. STILL OPEN ON EVERY MATTER: this is a computed FLOOR, not a deadline. The notice sets its own date. Ragulika shows the earliest the Registrar could have set so the obligation is not missed, and it must be corrected against the notice.
• Reply to India's provisional refusal. STILL OPEN — THE HIERARCHY HAS NOTHING TO RESOLVE TO. No court decision, no provision of the Act, no rule, and the Manual is silent on Madrid entirely: the word appears on none of its 215 pages. Practitioner sources also disagree on what starts the clock — one month from the holder's actual RECEIPT of the WIPO-transmitted notice, or thirty days from the DATE OF WIPO'S NOTIFICATION. That difference decides whether a late filing is late. Ragulika shows this date because an unwatched provisional refusal loses the mark in India, and shows it as practice rather than law. Confirm the refusal notice's own stated period on every matter.

How to check any single date

Open the deadline in the application and expand how this date was worked out. It names the event it ran from, the rule and the version of that rule, the exact section or rule reference, whether the period was counted inclusively, and whether the date was moved because it fell on a registry closure. That is the working, and it is on every date.

Last updated 27 August 2026. Ragu And Lika IP Private Limited, Y II E 120/2, Triveni Puram, Jhunsi, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh 211019. GSTIN 09AANCR3540G1Z7. Questions about this page go to contact@ragulikaip.com.