Toy Design Registration in Nepal: Protecting Shapes Before the Copies Arrive
Toy design registration in Nepal: what a toy design protects, how it overlaps with copyright on characters, the Class 28 trademark, and fees and terms at a glance.
A toy sells on its look twice: the shape a child grabs, and the character or artwork printed on it. Nepal's system protects both — but through two different rights that most toy makers register as one, and therefore hold as none.
The design registration protects the toy's shape and ornamentation; copyright covers the character artwork; the trademark carries the name on the box. Knowing which is which is the whole strategy.
In short
A toy design registers in Nepal on Schedule 1(b) with four sets of representations — NPR 1,000 to file, NPR 7,000 to register — and runs 5 years from registration, renewable twice for a 15-year maximum, with objections possible within 35 days of publication. The design protects the toy's shape, configuration and surface ornamentation applied by an industrial process; the character artwork is protected separately by copyright, automatically on creation; and the brand name belongs to a trademark in Class 28. Handmade craft toys walk the design-vs-craft line; mass-produced toys are squarely design territory.
What the design right covers on a toy
Sections 12–15 of the PDTA protect visual features applied to an article by an industrial process — and a moulded, assembled or mass-produced toy is the textbook article. The protectable surface: the figure's shape and configuration, the vehicle's profile, the puzzle's geometry, surface ornamentation — printed patterns, sculpted textures, colour arrangements where claimed.
The boundaries: a new mechanism (a movement, a sound element) is patent or trade-secret territory; the character artwork is copyright; the name on the packaging is the trademark; and a one-off handcrafted piece is a work of craft — protected by copyright as art rather than by design registration. Refusal grounds are narrow (Section 14), so the real work is novelty: your shape must be yours and new, not a market favourite restyled.
The filing at a glance
Toys teach the representations lesson fast: a doll's distinctiveness lives in the face, the costume detail, the proportions — features a single silhouette view loses. The set should show every view a shopper sees, plus close-ups where the character detail lives. The Department protects what is depicted; the market copies what it can see.
| Element | What practice expects |
|---|---|
| Form | Schedule 1(b), one design per application |
| Representations | Four sets, identical — front, side, back and top or detail views |
| Ornamentation | Printed patterns and sculpted detail depicted exactly |
| Colour | Claimed explicitly, or disclaimed to protect shape alone |
| Fees | NPR 1,000 application + NPR 7,000 registration |
| Term | 5 + 5 + 5 years — 15-year maximum |
The copyright overlap: characters are not designs
The character printed on, sculpted into or sold alongside the toy is copyright material — an artistic work protected automatically on creation under the Copyright Act, 2059, with a term that runs far longer than the design right's 15-year ceiling. That overlap has a strategic use: the character's copyright outlives the toy's design, and as the design term runs out, the recognisable artwork — protected, owned, registrable at the Copyright Registrar's Office as evidence — is what keeps the product line recognisable.
The ownership trap is the same one every content business meets: the artist who drew the character owns it until a written assignment says otherwise. Toy companies that commissioned artwork without assignment terms discover, at the licensing deal, that the character was never theirs — the site's commissioning-artwork guide sets the contract terms.
Craft toys and the industrial-process line
Nepal's toy makers span two worlds, and the rights split between them. A mass-produced toy — moulded, assembled in runs, sold through shops — is squarely design territory: industrial process, article of manufacture, registrable. A handcrafted piece — a carved wooden set, a handmade felt figure, a one-off — is a work of craft: its protection is copyright (automatic, as an artistic work) plus the brand, not a design registration.
The line matters for Nepal's craft exporters especially: felted and wooden toy makers shipping abroad should be protecting their original figures as copyright works (with assignments from the makers who sculpt them) and their brand names as trademarks, while saving the design registrations for the moulded, repeated products. Where a workshop does both, the filing decision runs product by product, not company-wide.
The stack, and the copies it stops
Register the design at launch
The term runs from registration and a toy's sales peak early — file before the first shipment, with objections (if any) arriving within 35 days of publication.
Own the character on paper
Assignment from the artist, registration for the high-value characters, and the name filed as a Class 28 trademark — NPR 1,000 + NPR 5,000 per class, renewed every 7 years.
Meet the copies on the ladder
Lookalike toys respond to the same escalation Nepal's furniture sector has run: documented comparison, DOI complaints, platform takedowns — with the representations doing the design's comparison work.
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.