How to Contact the DOI About a Trademark: Queries, Responses and Getting Answers

How the DOI communicates: letters, not notifications

The Industrial Property Section at the Department of Industry, Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, runs trademark administration as a written-file process. Examination objections arrive as letters; responses are filed as letters; decisions issue as letters. There is no notification-driven applicant experience of the kind e-filing jurisdictions provide — the proposed Industrial Property Bill 2082 would modernise the framework with e-filing provisions, but until it is enacted the paper discipline governs.

The letter's addressee matters: correspondence follows the applicant or agent of record on the file. For foreign applicants the local agent is mandatory, and all mail routes through them. For domestic applicants acting directly, the registered address on the application is where the DOI's letters go — which is why a wrong or stale address is one of the quietest ways to lose an application.

The status question: checking before chasing

Before any query is written, the file status can be checked from public records. Accepted applications publish in the Industrial Property Bulletin — issued roughly monthly, in Nepali and English, listing accepted applications with mark, applicant, class and dates in Bikram Sambat and AD. An application that has been accepted and published is visible there; register entries and certificates follow for registered marks.

The published record tells you which stage the application has reached. What it cannot tell you is why an examination is delayed — and that is the query worth writing.

• Check the Bulletin first — if the application is published, the clock is running on its ~90-day opposition window
• Verify the basics — application number, darta (filing) date, class, and the exact applicant name as filed
• Then ask the file a specific question — a status query that cites the number, date and the last document received

Writing the trademark query that gets answered

1. 1

   Identify the file precisely

   Every communication opens with the application or registration number, the filing date, the class and the mark as filed. A query without these is a research task for someone else; a query with them is five minutes of file work.

2. 2

   State what you know and what you need

   'Application filed 12 Shrawan 2083, no examination correspondence received; kindly advise status' is answerable. 'Any update on my trademark?' is not. Specificity is what moves a written-file institution.

3. 3

   Send it through the channel that creates a record

   Written submissions at the counter, through the agent of record, or by post — whichever route, keep the stamped or acknowledged copy. The file number of your own correspondence is the receipt that proves the query was made.

4. 4

   Respond to their letters faster than they respond to yours

   Examination objections carry response deadlines; missing one risks the application in ways no follow-up call repairs. The response discipline — calendar the deadline on receipt, answer with exhibits, keep copies — is the single highest-value habit in DOI communication.

   Responding to Office Actions: Deadlines

After the query: the follow-up discipline

A query that goes unanswered needs a follow-up, and the follow-up has its own craft: cite your previous letter and its date, add anything new (a receipt, a corrected detail, a changed address), and give each cycle a working interval before the next — a query every week reads as noise; a documented follow-up every two to three weeks reads as a file that is being managed.

Two escalations are legitimate when the cycle stalls. Through the agent of record, whose standing with the Section often moves a file faster than an applicant's letters; and through the office visit, prepared with the full correspondence set, to ask the specific procedural question the letters have not answered. What neither channel replaces is the written record — the file of dated queries and receipts that proves diligence if the delay ever matters to a deadline.

The one discipline that prevents most of this: a complete address on the application, checked at filing, because the letters the DOI sends arrive whether or not anyone is watching for them.

Visiting the office: what in-person contact is good for

The counter at Tripureshwor remains the fastest route for procedural questions — where the file stands, which counter handles which form, whether a submission is complete. Preparation decides the visit: bring the application number, the mark specimen, copies of prior correspondence, and the specific question. General enquiries without file references consume the visit and return empty-handed.

What the visit is not: a place to argue examination substance. Objections are answered in writing, with evidence, on the file — the officer at the counter cannot and will not decide a similarity question across a desk.