TM vs R (™ vs ®): What Each Symbol Means and When You Can Use It

The difference is legal status. ™ is a claim; ® is a statement of fact about the register.

The Trade Marks Act, 1999 does not mention the ™ symbol at all. It carries no rights of its own, needs no permission and can be used from the first day you use a brand, whether or not you have filed an application. Its value is practical: it tells competitors, distributors and marketplaces that you treat the name or logo as a trademark, which helps if you later have to prove that people saw it as a brand rather than a description.

® is different because the Act protects the public against false claims of registration. Section 107 penalises representing a mark as registered when it is not, and it treats the word "registered", or any word or symbol that refers to registration, as such a representation. The ® symbol is the most common way of making that representation, so it is reserved for marks that are actually on the register.

Why the distinction matters

Registration under the Act gives the owner the exclusive right to use the mark for the registered goods and services and the right to sue for infringement (sections 28 and 29). An unregistered mark is protected only through a passing-off action, which needs proof of reputation and misrepresentation. The symbol you use should match the right you actually hold.

You can use ® from the day the Registry registers the mark and the certificate issues. In the Registry’s online status, that is when the application shows Registered. Earlier stages, including Accepted, Accepted and Advertised and the four-month opposition window, are still pending stages. Until then, use ™.

Even after registration, ® applies only to what is registered:

• The same goods and services. If your mark is registered in Class 30 for tea, you should not print ® next to it on a clothing range sold in Class 25 that is still pending.
• The same mark. If you registered a logo, the registration covers the logo. Putting ® beside the plain word, in a different style, can overstate the right if the word alone is not registered.
• The same country. An Indian registration supports ® in India. A mark registered only abroad may be described as registered in India only with words, in letters at least as large, making clear that the registration is in that other country and is in force there.

What happens if ® is used wrongly?

Since 1 August 2024, when the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 took effect for trademarks, falsely representing a mark as registered is no longer punishable with imprisonment. Section 107 now provides for a monetary penalty of half a per cent of the person’s turnover or gross receipts, or five lakh rupees, whichever is less, imposed after an inquiry by an officer authorised by the Registrar (sections 112A and 112B). Beyond the penalty, a false ® can be raised against you in an opposition or infringement case as evidence of bad faith, and it gives competitors an easy complaint to marketplaces and regulators.

The © symbol belongs to copyright, not trademarks. It marks a creative work, such as a logo’s artwork, product copy, photographs or software, and is usually written as "© 2026 Company name". Copyright arises automatically in India when an original work is created, and registration with the Copyright Office is optional evidence of ownership.

A logo can therefore carry both kinds of protection: copyright in the artwork and trademark rights in its use as a brand. Our guide to copyright and trademark protection for a logo explains how to secure both. On the product itself, the trademark symbol sits next to the mark; the copyright notice usually appears in small print elsewhere on the pack or the website footer.

If you have not yet filed, a trademark search is the place to start; once the search is clear, trademark registration puts the ® within reach.