Trademark for a Consulting Firm in Nepal: Class 35 and Getting the Wording Right
Consulting firm trademark in Nepal: what Class 35 covers, when your service sits in another class, specification wording that passes, and the fees per class.
Consulting is a services business whose entire market-facing asset is a name — and the name is registrable in Nepal in Class 35, for a NPR 1,000 filing fee. What determines whether the registration is worth anything is not the class but the specification: the list of services the application claims.
Written loosely, it invites objections. Written precisely, it becomes the document that lets the firm stop a competitor trading on its name.
In short
A consulting firm trademark in Nepal files in Class 35 — advertising, business management and business administration services — as a single-class application at the DOI: NPR 1,000 to file, NPR 5,000 to register, a 7-year renewable term. The specification should name the actual services (management consultancy, business organisation planning), the name should be distinctive rather than generic, and specialized technical or professional consulting may need a second class.
Class 35: what it covers for a consulting firm
Class 35 is the services class for advertising, business management and business administration — and it is where general management consultancy, business strategy, market research and business organisation services register. For most Nepali consulting firms — management, HR, marketing, business development — Class 35 is the core filing.
The class heading is a gateway, not the claim itself: protection is defined by the services wording in the application. Two Class 35 filers can coexist comfortably if one claims advertising services and the other claims business consultancy — or collide hard if their wording overlaps.
When your consulting is really another class
The practical method: list what the firm actually sells, item by item, and map each item to its class. A firm selling both strategy advice and delivery of training programmes runs two applications — which is normal in Nepal's single-class system, not a complication to be avoided.
| Consulting activity | Typical class | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Management and business strategy | 35 | The core consulting filing |
| Training and workshops sold as programmes | 41 | Education and training services |
| Software and IT consultancy | 42 | Technology services sit apart from business consultancy |
| Legal, accounting or medical advisory | Own professional class | Check each service against the class notes |
The trademark name test: distinctive beats descriptive
Examiners refuse marks that are descriptive or generic for the services — a name built from 'consulting', 'advisory' or 'solutions' alone tells the buyer nothing distinctive, and Section 18 refuses marks lacking distinctiveness. Invented, suggestive or arbitrary names clear faster and enforce better.
Two Nepali-market realities add texture. First, founder names are registrable but carry collision risk with namesakes. Second, cross-script identity matters: the Devanagari rendering of your firm name, or its transliteration, is treated as the same brand — search it before filing, and consider registering both.
Filing the trademark application in Nepal: journey and fees
Search the name across scripts
Screen the proposed name against the DOI's published records — exact, phonetic and transliterated variants — before it goes on the letterhead.
Draft the services wording
Name the services specifically — management consultancy, business organisation planning, market research — in terms a Nepal examiner will accept: specific enough to be examined, broad enough for the practice you are building.
File and track the window
The Schedule 1(c) application files with NPR 1,000; publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin opens a roughly 90-day opposition window; registration follows at NPR 5,000 per class if unopposed — typically six to twelve months after filing.
Growing the firm's mark into a portfolio
Consulting firms grow sideways — a research arm, a training academy, a productised methodology. Each growth line is a filing decision in its own class, and each registration renews on its own 7-year clock at NPR 3,500 per class. The use rule applies to services too: a registration for services never actually offered is exposed to the one-year non-use inquiry, so file the classes the practice is genuinely entering.
The certificate also matters commercially: it is the document that anchors a partner's departure, a practice sale, or an infringement complaint when a former client sets up under a confusingly similar name.
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.