Construction Company Trademark in Nepal: Class 37 and the Classes Around It
A construction company trademark in Nepal: why Class 37 is the core filing, which adjacent classes matter, what it costs, and how the DOI examines builder brands.
Ring Road is lined with hoardings for builders whose names differ by a word — and more than one Kathmandu developer has discovered that the name on its hoarding belongs, on the register, to someone else. Construction is a trust business: the brand is how banks, buyers and landowners tell you apart.
A construction company trademark in Nepal is a class-map exercise. File the right class first and the rest is procedure; file the wrong one and the certificate protects services you do not sell.
In short
A construction company trademark in Nepal starts with Class 37 — building construction, repair and installation services — filed as its own application at the Department of Industry under the PDTA's one-class-per-application rule. Adjacent filings (42 for engineering and architectural design, 19 for branded building materials, 35 for retail or trading operations) are separate applications at NPR 1,000 each, with NPR 5,000 registration per class and NPR 3,500 per class every 7-year renewal. Expect Section 18 scrutiny of descriptive names and Devanagari sound-alikes, a roughly 6–12 month journey through the 90-day opposition window, and a one-year use requirement that real projects satisfy easily.
A construction company trademark in Nepal starts with Class 37
Class 37 covers building construction, repair and installation services — the natural home for contracting, housing development and infrastructure work. Nepal applies the Nice Classification's 45 classes under Section 18A of the PDTA, with one application per class: a construction company cannot bundle its services, its materials and its design consultancy into one filing.
That is why the class map comes before the form. Two builders with near-identical names can coexist if their classes never overlap; a conflicting mark in an adjacent class becomes a problem the moment the goods or services do.
| Business activity | Class(es) | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Contracting, housing and infrastructure work | 37 | Building construction, repair and installation services |
| Engineering, architecture and design consultancy | 42 | Professional design and engineering services |
| Branded building materials | 19 / 17 | Non-metallic and insulation materials as goods |
| Electrical and sanitary fittings under the brand | 9 / 11 | Apparatus and installations as goods |
| Retail or trading of materials | 35 | Bringing goods to the consumer |
| Material treatment and processing services | 40 | Treatment of materials, per the site's class guide |
What the filing costs, class by class
Government fees are fixed per application: NPR 1,000 to file and NPR 5,000 to register, per class. A builder filing 37 and 42 therefore pays 2 × NPR 6,000 across the journey; each additional class multiplies every later event too — including renewal, NPR 3,500 per class every 7 years, due within 35 days of expiry with a six-month grace route at NPR 4,500 including the NPR 1,000 late fine.
The sequencing rule from the site's class guide applies squarely here: file the revenue-critical class immediately, and add adjacent classes as the business actually enters them — an idle class costs fees now and renewals forever.
What gets builder brands refused
Section 18 refusals cluster on two grounds. The first is conflict: an identical or deceptively similar earlier mark for the same or similar services — and in a bilingual market, names that sound alike across English and Devanagari are treated as conflicting even where no spelling matches. A builder known in one script should check the other before filing.
The second is descriptiveness. A name that says only the trade and the place invites objection, while a distinctive coined or suggestive name — the pattern behind Nepal's strongest builder brands — clears examination cleanly. Global builder brands with registered Nepalese marks add a third layer: their earlier filings block later lookalikes regardless of local use.
The documents and the filing sequence
Domestic applicants attach company or industry registration, PAN and tax clearance. The Schedule 1(c) application states the applicant, the mark, the class and the services specification, and travels with four printed specimens of the mark — in practice, labels of about 8×8 cm, which for builders usually means the logo lockup used on hoardings and site boards.
Search across scripts and classes
Screen the name against registered marks and published applications in Class 37 and the adjacent classes on the map.
Draft the services wording
Name the commercial services — 'building construction services', 'repair and maintenance of buildings' — not marketing abstractions.
File per class and pay NPR 1,000 each
The DOI records the darta date; examination follows, with written objections answered within the stated period.
Publication, opposition, registration
Accepted marks publish in the Industrial Property Bulletin for roughly 90 days of opposition; then the NPR 5,000 registration fee buys the certificate.
The builder's wider IP stack
The trademark is one layer. Construction methods — a formwork technique, a low-cost foundation process — can be examined as patentable processes under Section 2(a) of the PDTA, on Nepal's 7-year renewable terms. Prefab elements and distinctive surface finishes can qualify as industrial designs. And project names live in a different registry entirely: the company name at the OCR is not a trademark, and neither blocks a competitor's filing at the DOI.
After registration, two disciplines keep the certificate valuable: real use within a year (Section 18C makes unused registrations vulnerable to cancellation inquiry — project signboards and contract documents are the evidence), and a watch on the Bulletin so a later conflicting application is opposed inside the 90-day window rather than discovered on a competitor's hoarding.
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.