Logo Redesign in Nepal: Does the Trademark Registration Survive the New Look?
Redesigning your logo in Nepal? What happens to the existing trademark registration, when a fresh filing is the safer route, and how to keep the record clean.
The agency has delivered the new logo — flatter, friendlier, ready for the app icon. Then someone in the meeting asks the question every Nepalese brand owner should ask before the rebrand launches: we have a registration for the old mark. What happens to it?
The answer decides whether the redesign is a quiet update or an accidental gap in protection.
In short
A logo redesign in Nepal does not update the trademark registration automatically: the register protects the mark as filed, so a materially changed logo trades under an ageing registration for the old look. The sound sequence is to keep the existing registration renewed and in use, assess whether the new logo is a variant or a different mark, file a fresh application for the new device before launch, and use both marks in transition — because a mark unused within one year of registration risks a Section 18C use inquiry, and a renewal missed in its 35-day window lapses the registration outright.
What the trademark registration actually covers
A Nepalese trademark registration protects the mark as registered — the device, label or word combination shown in the filing. It is not a licence over the brand's future evolution: redesign the logo substantially and the new look is, in register terms, a different sign wearing your name.
Two consequences follow. First, enforcement against a copycat of the new logo is cleaner if the new logo is itself registered. Second, the old registration carries obligations of its own — use within one year of registration (Section 18C's exposure to a Departmental use inquiry) and renewal every 7 years, on Schedule 2(f) within 35 days of expiry, with a 6-month grace period carrying a NPR 1,000 fine. A redesigned brand that quietly stops using the old mark still has to decide what happens to its registration.
Variant or new mark? The honest test
The assessment practitioners run is the same one the Department applies to similarity — but pointed at your own old and new logos.
- Visual identity — same silhouette, weight and distinctive elements? A recolour or kerning fix is a variant; a new icon is not
- The distinctive core — what consumers actually use to recognise you: the name inside the logo, the emblem, the shape
- Phonetic continuity — the word element unchanged keeps most of the practical protection, since the name is what gets searched and remembered
- Trade impression — shown side by side in a Kathmandu shop, would a customer buying the new look believe it is the same brand? If yes, the registration still speaks for the brand's goodwill; if no, the new mark needs its own filing
The filing sequence for a redesign
Done in the right order, a redesign costs one extra application and no exposure.
File the new device before launch
A fresh Schedule 1(c) application for the new logo — NPR 1,000 per class to file, NPR 5,000 to register — gives the new look its own date and its own 7-year term. Filing before the public launch also stops anyone else claiming the new look first.
Keep the old registration alive through transition
Renew the old mark as normal — NPR 3,500 per class per 7-year term in current practice — and keep evidence of its use during the transition period. Dropping the old registration the day the new logo launches is how brands lose the protection that covers legacy packaging still in the market.
Plan the endgame for the old mark
Once legacy stock and signage are retired, the old registration becomes a maintenance decision. Some owners keep it as a defensive entry against copycats of the old look; others let it lapse deliberately. Either way, the decision is logged — not drifted into.
Why the word mark is the logo's hedge
Brands that registered only the composite logo learn the redesign lesson the expensive way. The word mark — the name registered as a word, independent of any styling — survives every visual redesign unchanged, which is why practitioners file the name and the device separately, each NPR 1,000 to file per class.
If the redesign conversation is happening because the brand has outgrown its old look, it is also the right moment to check what the portfolio actually holds: name as a word mark, logo as a device, tagline where there is one. The filing bill for the gap is smaller than one redesign cycle's media spend.
Record-keeping after the redesign in Nepal
Nothing about a redesign needs a recordal at the Department of Industry unless the applicant's own details change — name and address updates record at NPR 1,000 per mark. What needs discipline is the evidence file: dated specimens of both marks in use, launch dates, and the renewal anniversaries of every mark in the portfolio entered in one calendar.
A clean file matters most when it is needed in a dispute — and a redesign is exactly when copycats test the edges.
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This article is general information, not legal advice.