Beverage Trademark in Nepal: Class 32, the Label, and the Classes Beyond the Bottle
A beverage trademark in Nepal: Class 32 for drinks, the neighbouring classes, label design rights, filing costs, and what local litigation teaches brands.
Walk any Nepali village shop and the cold-drinks shelf is a trademark battlefield: national brands, regional brands, and lookalikes whose labels differ by a curve. Beverages are Nepal's most counterfeited, most litigated consumer category — which makes the trademark filing the cheapest decision on the production line.
A beverage trademark in Nepal is one class to start and several to finish. Here is the map, the cost, and what Nepali courts have already taught the industry.
In short
A beverage trademark in Nepal starts in Class 32 — beers, mineral and aerated waters, fruit beverages and juices, syrups and preparations for making beverages — filed as its own application at the Department of Industry. Neighbouring products need their own classes: tea and coffee-based drinks in Class 30, milk-based drinks in Class 29, other alcohols in Class 33, retail in Class 35. Each class costs NPR 1,000 to file and NPR 5,000 to register, renews at NPR 3,500 per class every 7 years, and lives on its own 35-day renewal window. The label carries trademark, copyright and possibly design rights, and Nepal's litigation history — the Tuborg repackaging case above all — shows enforcement is real.
The beverage trademark class map in Nepal: Class 32 and its neighbours
Class 32 is the home of carbonated soft drinks, packaged water, juices, energy drinks, beers and the syrups behind them. Nepal applies the Nice Classification under Section 18A of the PDTA with one application per class — so the drinks brand is a Class 32 filing, and everything the same brand touches outside Class 32 is a separate application with its own fee, examination and renewal.
Getting the neighbours right matters because examiners assess conflicts class by class: a juice brand and a tea brand with the same name may coexist on paper until the product lines converge.
| Product line | Class | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Soft drinks, water, juices, energy drinks, beer | 32 | The core beverages class |
| Tea- and coffee-based ready drinks, cocoa drinks | 30 | Plant-based foodstuffs and preparations |
| Milk and milk-based drinks, lassi | 29 | Dairy products |
| Spirits, wine, liquor other than beer | 33 | Alcoholic beverages excluding beers |
| Distribution, retail and vending services | 35 | Bringing goods to the consumer |
| Label artwork and packaging ornament | Design / copyright | Separate rights over the bottle's look |
The label is three rights in one bottle
A Nepali beverage label stacks rights. The brand name and logo are the trademark — what registration protects class by class. The artwork is copyright, protected automatically from creation. And a label with a distinctive visual appearance can be protected as an industrial design — Nepal registers designs on 5-year terms renewable to 15, with annual maintenance of NPR 1,000–2,000 depending on the term, which is why packaging-heavy brands register the design and the mark.
The composite label is also what counterfeiters copy first. Registration decisions should assume the label, not just the word mark, is the target.
The per-class cost of a drinks portfolio
Government fees multiply across the map: NPR 1,000 application and NPR 5,000 registration per class, then NPR 3,500 per class at each 7-year renewal — due within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month grace route at NPR 4,500 including the NPR 1,000 fine. A brand in three classes pays 3 × NPR 6,000 across the journey and renews three clocks forever.
The discipline: file the revenue class immediately, add neighbouring classes as the lines launch, and diarise every renewal — a lapsed class in a first-to-file register is an invitation, and beverage copycats read expiry dates.
What local litigation has already settled
Nepal's beverage and FMCG sector has produced the country's most instructive brand cases. The Tuborg vs. Mount Everest Brewery dispute over repackaging and bottle presentation showed how far presentation rights and dilution arguments reach beyond the word mark. Counterfeit beverage and FMCG goods are a standing enforcement problem that brands fight through DOI complaints, customs alerts at border points and police raids — all documented on this site.
The pattern behind them is consistent: the brands that won were the brands that had registered first, renewed on time, and documented use. Enforcement outcomes in Nepal track register hygiene with unusual fidelity.
Filing sequence for a beverage launch
A new drinks brand in Nepal moves from search to certificate in roughly six to twelve months when unopposed — a timeline that should shape the launch calendar, because the opposition window is where copycat objections land.
Search names and labels phonetically
Screen across scripts: Devanagari sound-alikes conflict even when no spelling matches.
File the core class before production
Class 32 for the drink itself; Schedule 1(c) with four label specimens of about 8×8 cm.
Layer the label rights
Copyright arises automatically; register the label design where packaging distinctiveness matters.
Watch the Bulletin and the market
Oppose conflicting applications inside the 90-day window; report counterfeits to DOI and customs.
Use it, or the register takes it back
Section 18C's one-year use rule applies to beverage marks like any other: a registration not in commercial use within a year of registration invites a cancellation inquiry. For drinks brands the evidence is everywhere — invoices, dispatch records, labelled stock — but it must be kept deliberately. The mark on every bottle is also the cheapest use evidence a Nepali brand will ever generate.
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.