Common Reasons for Trademark Application Rejection in Nepal
Why Nepalese trademark applications are refused — the Section 18 grounds in practice, the procedural failures, and the pre-filing fixes that prevent most rejections.
Most trademark refusals in Nepal are not bad luck — they are predictable, traceable to a handful of substantive and procedural causes, and preventable before the application is filed.
This guide collects the refusal reasons in the order they actually occur, with the pre-filing fix for each.
In short
Nepalese trademark applications are refused mainly under Section 18 of the PDTA: similarity to earlier marks causing confusion (including across scripts and transliterations), lack of distinctiveness, descriptiveness of the goods' qualities, deceptive marks, and conflict with well-known marks or protected signs. Procedural causes add: defective documents (missing notarised POA or home-registration certificate for foreign applicants), wrong or overlapping classes, specification wording that is too broad or unclear, and formal defects in representations or applicant details. Most refusals are preventable with pre-filing clearance (exact, phonetic and transliteration screening), correct class selection, concrete specification wording, and a complete document set.
The substantive grounds, in practice
Section 18 supplies the refusal grounds, and practice sorts them by frequency:
| Ground | How it presents | Pre-filing fix |
|---|---|---|
| Similarity to an earlier mark (Section 18(1)) | Cited earlier mark, same or neighbouring class, phonetic or visual overlap | Full clearance: exact, phonetic and transliteration screening, both scripts |
| Lack of distinctiveness | Generic or common trade terms, simple geometric signs, laudatory words | Choose coined or arbitrary marks; add distinctive devices |
| Descriptiveness | The name describes the goods' quality, origin or character | Avoid descriptive wording; abstract or coin |
| Deceptive marks | Misleads about origin, quality or geographic source | Fact-check every suggestion the mark makes |
| Well-known mark conflict | Cited famous mark, even outside its registered classes | Clear against famous marks; expect cross-class protection |
| Prior conflicting application/registration | Identical or near-identical earlier filing | The word search — run before filing, not after refusal |
The procedural failures
Applications also die on paperwork, and the causes are unglamorous. Incomplete documents — foreign applications missing the notarised POA or certified home registration; domestic applications missing board resolution or tax papers. Class errors — goods filed in the wrong class, or across classes in one application (Nepal is strictly single-class). Specification defects — vague or overly broad wording that the examiner cannot accept, or class-headings that invite descriptiveness objections. Formal defects — representations that don't match the mark as used, applicant details that don't match corporate papers.
Procedural refusals waste the most time because they are discovered after filing — the examination queue consumed months before the defect surfaced. The document checklist and the class/specification review are the entire defence, and both take an afternoon.
- Foreign set: notarised POA + certified home registration — complete before filing
- One class per application; goods in the right class
- Specification in concrete, examinable terms
Legal references
- Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act, 2022 (1965) — English translation (PDF) — WIPO Lex
- Department of Industry — Industrial Property Section — Government of Nepal
The response: when refusal arrives
A refusal is not a verdict — it is an examination report with a deadline. The response options, matched to the ground: argue distinctiveness or difference where the examiner's comparison is wrong (with evidence, not adjectives); narrow the specification to remove the overlap; amend formal defects exactly as directed; or, where the cited conflict is real, withdraw and refile under a better mark. Each response runs on the same clock, and the agent of record manages it.
The strategic point: a refusal handled well often ends in registration of a narrower right — which is frequently the right the business actually needs. A refusal ignored ends in loss of the filing fee and the filing date, which in a first-to-file system is the most expensive kind of tidiness.
The prevention checklist
Compressed to one list, the pre-filing discipline that prevents most refusals: search (exact, phonetic, transliteration, both scripts), choose distinctively (coined or arbitrary beats descriptive), classify correctly (nature and purpose, not intuition), draft concretely (specific goods in trade terms), complete the documents (POA, certificates, corporate papers — legalised where required), and file as you use (the mark applied for is the mark on the signage). Five of the six take place before any fee is paid — which is the cheapest legal work in the entire IP system.
Want this handled for your brand?
IP Watch monitors new trademark publications in Nepal and alerts you to potentially conflicting marks — with the context needed to review them.
This article is general information, not legal advice.