Intellectual property in Nepal

01

Trademarks

End-to-end brand work before the Department of Industry, including the quiet work after registration.

A trademark right in Nepal is territorial. Use abroad does not, by itself, put a mark on the local register. Filing is under the Patent, Design and Trademark Act, 2022 (1965). The useful sequence is search, file, examination, publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin, then registration — if nobody opposes, or after an opposition is decided.

The practice covers availability searches, class strategy, filing, responses to examination, watching publication, oppositions, and renewals. Foreign brand owners are guided through local-agent requirements, Paris priority claims, and how a Nepal filing sits in a wider portfolio. A home registration certificate is commonly part of the pack when the mark is already registered abroad.

Before filing

Clearance against earlier marks in the relevant classes. Cheaper to change a class list than to fight an opponent after publication.

02

Patents

Nepal is not in the PCT. If this country matters, it needs its own application and its own clock.

Nepal is a member of the Paris Convention and of WIPO. It is not a contracting party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty. There is no PCT national phase into Kathmandu. Protection here is a national filing — often with a Paris Convention priority claim — or, where a grant already exists abroad, a confirmatory patent.

The work includes assessing what can usefully be claimed in Nepal, preparing the application, and coordinating with foreign counsel so timelines are not missed. Novelty and examination should be checked against Nepali statute and Department practice, not assumed to match the EPO or USPTO. A grant is the start of maintenance, not the end of the file.

Diary the Paris deadline as if Nepal were any other listed country. It cannot ride on a PCT automatically.

Read the patent note →

03

Industrial designs

The visual appearance of a product — shape, pattern, ornament — registered as its own right.

Design filings are often timed with a product launch, or with trademark protection for the brand that sits on the same goods. The two rights do different work: the mark says whose product it is; the design says what it looks like. Lookalikes in the market may need both.

Paris Convention priority for designs is short. Instructing counsel should treat Nepal as a listed country on the same sheet as other design filings, with drawings that the Department can actually examine. Advice against lookalikes — a letter, a bulletin opposition if someone else files, or a court path — follows from how fast the client needs the use to stop.

Read the design note →