Send Factor

Stronger evidence in courtrooms-it’s what every attorney, defendant, and plaintiff dreams of. Beginning in the last 1980s, this is exactly what began to surface through DNA profiling.

In addition to the one-of-a-kind pattern engraved on our fingers, each of us possesses a unique identifier that is built within our bodies. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic blueprint that determines our biological characteristics. DNA is a long molecule located in almost every cell in the human body. When we are conceived, we inherit half of our DNA from our mother and half from our father. Although every human’s DNA is 99.9% identical, the remaining 0.1% is enough to uniquely identify an individual. Our DNA is made up of about 3 billion base pairs, the building blocks of DNA composed mainly of carbon and sugar. The 0.1% (3 million) base pairs that make us unique are what constitute our DNA fingerprint.

Over the past 20 years, courts have been able to rely upon the consistent accuracy of DNA profiling, also known as DNA fingerprinting, to solve crimes. DNA profiling has even been used to solve crimes that are more than 30 years old.

Here’s how DNA profiling is done:

DNA profiling is mostly used in sexual offences (60%), homicide (20%), assaults (7%), robbery (7%), criminal damage (1%), and other cases (5%).

DNA profiling narrows the list of suspects that authorities need to work through. The FBI commented that DNA profiling allows them to dismiss one-third of rape suspects because the DNA samples do not match. Authorities recognize the possibility of specimens being planted at crime scenes, and therefore continue to investigate the crime based on motive, weapon, testimony, and other clues in order to more accurately solve the case.

As we wave goodbye to 2005 and charge into 2006, it is time to get your house in order. This is particularly true for the legal issues in your life.

Legal Planning

As drab as it may seem, legal planning can help you avoid disasters in your life. With the turn of the calendar, now is the time to give your life and business some thought.

On the family front, you should be thinking about changes you experienced in 2005 and if any of them require you to take some steps. If you got married, you need to jump through a few loopholes related to changing names, addresses with relevant companies and so on. If you had a new family addition, have you give consideration to updating your will or family trust? On a less enjoyable subject, are there any steps you need to make with parents who are growing older. Elder abuse, particularly financially, can be a problem and you may want to provide assistance to elder parents so they aren’t taken advantage of.

On the business front, now is the time to take a step back and reflect upon how things are going. Did you meet your goals in 2005? If you didn’t, how do you plan to make 2006 a better year? In making this determination, you need to be honest with yourself and make sure you evaluate your week points. From a legal perspective, are all of your relevant business documents up to date? Have annual minutes been filed for your corporation or LLC?

A particular area where businesses fail to follow up are changes in contracts. When entering a contract, both parties tend to see great success in the future. Inevitably, they discover the agreement needs to be tweaked to allow for circumstances and so on. When this occurs, the parties will often reach an oral agreement or just shake hands on it. Such agreements are not binding on the parties. If a dispute occurs, the business relationship will be evaluated using the original agreement. That can lead to a nightmare of circumstances. If you’ve tweaked an agreement with another party, now is the time to get such an amendment in writing!

April 15th sounds a long way off, but it will come faster than you can imagine. Yep, I’m talking about taxes. Do you feel you pay too much in taxes? Of course you do. This is a god given right of every American. Well, now is the time to do something about it. You should contact your CPA and do some tax planning for 2006. Saving taxes often comes down to how you collect revenues and distribute them. Slight changes can save you tens of thousands of dollars, but you must implement them early in the calendar year.

As the calendar flipped to 2006, you undoubtedly made a resolution to do something. Getting your legal house in order probably wasn’t what you had in mind, but it is something you should do!

A trademark refers to any word , symbol or letters or a combination of these that is used to mark the product so as to distinguish it from the product of another producer. The trademark is useful to make the public aware of the producer or the source of the product. Trademarks play a significant role in product marketing and thus there are certain rules laid down for the registration of trademarks. Every country or nation has a set of rules governing the registration of trademarks. India also has laid down a set of laws governing the registration of trademarks. For trademarks registeration in India the owner has to file an application in writing with the Registrar of Trade Marks in the required format.

Different states of India have their own particular offices wherein one can file the application for trademark registration . For instance for trademarks registration in Chennai , one has to file the application as per the prescribed format and make the payment of the fees either by cash, bank draft , money order or postal order favouring “Deputy Registrar of Trade marks”, Chennai. For any other information related to the registration of trademarks in Chennai the Deputy Registrar of Trademarks at the Trade Marks Registry in Rajaji Bhavan , Chennai may be contacted.

How to file trademark application in India
The Trade Marks Act, 1999 governs all the matters related to trademarks and holds good throughout India. By registering a particular trademark the person gets exclusive rights for its use. Although it is not compulsory by law to register a trademark , registering the trademark provides legal protection to it.

The trademark offices in India are situated at five places namely , Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkota, Delhi and Chennai. For the registration of a trademark, the application must be filed in Form TM-1 in any of the five offices of the Trademarks Registry within whose jurisdiction the business office would fall. A fee of Rs. 2500/- must accompany the application form. The application is then processed to check if the trademark is unique and not one that is already registered. If found valid then the next step would involve the publishing of the trademark in the Trade Marks Journal allowing others a chance to raise objection, if any. If it is found that there is no objection from anybody then it is registered as a valid trademark and a certificate is duly issued. In case of any objection and the application rejected by the authority the applicant has a chance for appeal to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board.

The general term for which a trademark is registered is for 10 years after which it has to be renewed . One can renew it for another 10 years after the expiry of the first 10 years. In case a registered trademark is not renewed then it is deleted from the register of trademarks.

Registering a trademark although not compulsory as per the law , is beneficial due to the legal protection that it offers.