Jewellery Design Registration in Nepal: Protecting Ornaments Before They Are Copied

What qualifies: ornament applied to an article

Sections 12–15 of the PDTA protect the visual features of an article — shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation — as applied by an industrial process. For jewellery that is the natural register: the geometry of a filigree bangle, the cut and setting of a pendant, the repeating pattern tooled into a cuff. The design must be applied to a product you make and sell; a sketch that never becomes an article is not design territory.

Refusal grounds are narrow — Section 14 refuses only designs already registered, against public morality, national interest, or the prestige of a person or institution. There is no inventive-step test and no distinctiveness analysis. The diligence burden is therefore yours: search the register and the market before filing, because registering a look you copied from another Karigar's bench is a defence problem, not an asset.

Design, copyright or trademark: choosing for jewellery

Three rights touch a jewellery business, and they answer different questions. The practical rule: mass-produced pieces go to design registration; unique artistic works carry automatic copyright; the house name and hallmark go to trademark.

Jewellery design registration in Nepal: the Schedule 1(b) filing

The application is filed on Schedule 1(b) with four sets of representations in practice — the drawings or images that show the design. For jewellery this is the whole game: the Department protects what the representations clearly show, not what is implied. A pendant shown only front-on leaves its reverse, clasp and chain unprotected.

Prepare representations that are consistent (same article, same angles), photographed or drawn on neutral backgrounds without display clutter, and accompanied by particulars stating what is claimed — including whether colour and surface texture are claimed. Where a collection shares one design with stone-size variants, each variant should be visible; range-hopping squatters exploit exactly what the drawings omit.

Fees, timeline and the 5+5+5 term

Costs are modest: NPR 1,000 at application and NPR 7,000 at registration in current practice. The timeline runs in weeks to months — substantially faster than a patent — which is why product-led businesses register the design first and evaluate the patent question separately.

The term is 5 years from registration, renewable at most twice for 5 years each — a 15-year ceiling after which the design enters the public domain. Renewals are filed on Schedule 2(e) within 35 days of each expiry, with a 6-month grace period carrying a NPR 1,000 fine; beyond grace, cancellation is automatic. For jewellery, the arithmetic is honest: a design that sells for its first five years usually justifies the first renewal (NPR 1,000/year); the second is a sharper call about whether the look still moves stock.

Enforcement: the market problem design registration solves

A registered design gives you a dated, government-issued right to stand on when copies surface — a cease-and-desist with a registration number behind it changes the conversation with a wholesaler, and a complaint at the DOI or with the police becomes a documents exercise instead of an argument about who sketched what first.

Plan the trademark alongside: designs expire at year 15, but a mark kept renewed on the product's branding elements never does. Brand equity quietly replaces the expiring design right — the layered endgame every established jeweller eventually needs.

Before you file: two quick checks

First, search registered designs and the market — the narrow refusal grounds make copying someone else's live look the main risk. Second, disclose nothing before filing: Nepal's design system rewards a clean novelty position, and exhibition-day photographs published too early are how good designs lose the protection they were headed for.