Trademark Portfolio Renewal in Nepal: Managing Multi-Class Renewal Calendars
Trademark portfolio renewal in Nepal is class-by-class work: separate 7-year terms, 35-day windows, NPR 3,500 per class. Build one calendar for the portfolio.
A business holding a brand in four or five Nice classes does not have one trademark to renew in Nepal — it has four or five, each on its own 7-year clock, each with its own 35-day renewal window and its own NPR 3,500 fee.
Portfolio renewal in Nepal is therefore calendar work, not paperwork work. This guide sets out how the per-class structure multiplies deadlines, what the arithmetic looks like at real portfolio sizes, and the system that keeps every class alive.
In short
Trademark portfolio renewal in Nepal means tracking a separate 7-year renewal for every class filing, because each single-class application registers and renews on its own anniversary. Renewal is due within 35 days of each expiry at NPR 3,500 per class, with a 6-month grace period at NPR 4,500; a lapse cancels that class alone. The discipline that keeps a portfolio alive: one deadline calendar in BS and AD, filed early where possible, reviewed every year against what the business still sells.
Why trademark portfolio renewal in Nepal is per-class work
Section 18A of the PDTA forces every application into a single Nice class, and everything downstream inherits that structure: the examination, the Bulletin publication, the certificate, the registration date and the renewal. A brand filed in Classes 30, 35 and 43 has three registration dates — identical only if the classes were filed together — and three renewal anniversaries that can fall in different years.
A lapse is also siloed. Missing one class renewal cancels that class alone; the others survive. That is survivable, but the cancelled class leaves a gap in a first-to-file system — the space where a competitor files next.
The arithmetic at portfolio scale
Renewal fees are charged per mark, per class in current practice: NPR 3,500 on time, NPR 4,500 inside the 6-month grace period (the NPR 1,000 fine included). Multiplied across a portfolio, the recurring line item is predictable — which makes it budgetable.
The subtler cost is attention: ten class filings filed across different years produce a rolling calendar of 7-year expiries, each with a 35-day normal-fee window and a 6-month grace tail. Every event is a chance to lapse, and the fine is never the real risk — the mark is.
| Classes held | On-time renewal, per 7-year cycle | Renewed in grace |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | NPR 3,500 | NPR 4,500 |
| 3 | NPR 10,500 | NPR 13,500 |
| 5 | NPR 17,500 | NPR 22,500 |
| 10 | NPR 35,000 | NPR 45,000 |
Building the portfolio renewal calendar
The working system is one calendar, all classes, both calendars. Each entry is derived the same way: fix the registration date from the certificate in BS and AD, add 7 years for expiry, count 35 days for the normal-fee deadline, add 6 calendar months for the grace deadline, and adjust for Nepalese public holidays — a deadline on a holiday extends to the next working day.
Inventory every class filing
List each registration with its mark, class, registration number and registration date — in BS and AD. Old files often hold transcription errors; verify each date against the certificate before it enters the calendar.
Derive the dates per class
Expiry = registration + 7 years; normal-fee deadline = expiry + 35 days; grace deadline = expiry + 6 calendar months. Diarise an internal deadline at least a week before the normal-fee window closes — the calculator encodes the whole method in BS and AD.
File early where possible
The Department accepts renewal filings before the anniversary — accepted practice that converts a deadline problem into a calendar entry and removes the fine risk entirely. Bunching early filings into a single annual renewal exercise also compresses professional costs.
Triage: which classes deserve renewal
A portfolio review before each renewal cycle is the disciplined habit. Classes still carrying revenue renew without debate. Classes the business has quietly exited are a judgement call: under Section 18C, a mark not used within one year of registration is vulnerable to a non-use cancellation inquiry, and carrying dead classes buys renewal fees and exposure together.
Deliberate, documented lapse of a dead class is sound portfolio management — provided the exit is real. For classes adjacent to planned expansion, the NPR 3,500 renewal is cheap option value in a first-to-file registry.
Housekeeping that makes renewals easy
Renewals route through the address of record, so a stale register entry is a renewal problem waiting to happen: name and address changes record at the DOI for NPR 1,000 per mark, and assignments for NPR 2,000. Recording transfers as they happen means the renewal exercise never stalls on ownership papers.
For foreign-owned portfolios, renewals run through the local agent under the Power of Attorney on file — keep that mandate current, because an agent transition discovered in a renewal window is how good marks die.
Renewal is not monitoring
One boundary to keep clear: a renewed registration is protected class-wide, but it watches nothing. New conflicting applications still publish in the Industrial Property Bulletin and still proceed if nobody opposes them within roughly 90 days of publication. A portfolio this size needs renewal discipline and a watch running side by side.
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.