Trademark Registration Eligibility in Nepal: Who Can Register a Trademark?
Who has trademark registration eligibility in Nepal? Individuals, companies, firms and foreign applicants all qualify — what each needs to file.
The question sounds basic — who is allowed to register a trademark in Nepal? — and the answer is broader than most applicants expect: any person, company or firm, Nepalese or foreign, with no requirement of prior use and no minimum business size.
Eligibility is rarely the obstacle; the document set and the applicant structure are. This guide covers who can apply, what each applicant type files, and the distinctions — company name versus trademark, registration versus use — that decide whether the right ends up in the right hands.
In short
Trademark registration eligibility in Nepal is broad: any individual, proprietorship, partnership, company or institution — Nepalese or foreign — can apply, with no prior use required, though the applicant should intend to use the mark. Foreign companies apply through a mandatory local agent under a notarised, consularly legalised Power of Attorney. What narrows eligibility in practice is not who you are but what you file: the mark itself must clear Section 18's refusal grounds, the applicant must be the entity that will own the mark (the company, not the founder personally), and the document set — company or industry registration and PAN for domestic applicants — must match the application exactly.
Trademark registration eligibility in Nepal: the applicant types
Nepalese law opens trademark applications to any person, company or firm. In practice that covers individuals (including those not yet in business), sole proprietorships, partnerships, private and public companies, cooperatives and institutions. There is no residence requirement for domestic filers, no capital threshold, and — significantly — no requirement that the mark already be in use, which makes filing a sensible early step for any brand about to launch.
Foreign companies and individuals qualify on the same terms, with one structural addition: applications are filed through a local (Nepali) authorised agent under a notarised Power of Attorney, and the foreign applicant's home-registration or priority documents join the set. The foreign applicant is the owner on the register from day one — not the agent, not the importer.
| Applicant | Documents | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | Citizenship / ID details | Can file before any trading begins |
| Sole proprietorship | Firm registration, PAN | The business is the person — name it accordingly |
| Partnership | Firm registration, PAN | All partners' interest should be settled in writing |
| Company | Company registration, PAN | The company — not the founder — should be the applicant |
| Foreign entity | Notarised + legalised POA, home registration | Filed through the local agent |
Eligibility of the mark: what Section 18 filters out
Whoever the applicant is, the mark itself must clear the registrability filters. Section 18(1) refuses marks identical or deceptively similar to earlier marks for the same or similar goods — including across scripts, so a Devanagari application can conflict with a Latin registration on sound alone. Descriptive and generic names, customary trade terms, and marks that falsely suggest state connection or national emblems are refused on their own grounds.
The eligibility lesson inside this filter: distinctiveness is the applicant's real qualification. An invented or suggestive name qualifies easily; a name that describes the product ('Himalayan Pure Tea' for tea) fights for its registration and often loses it.
The owner question: who should hold the registration
Eligibility also has a strategic dimension: the applicant becomes the registered proprietor, so the entity that files should be the entity that owns the brand commercially. A founder who files personally while the company builds the brand creates a transfer problem later — solvable by assignment recordal at NPR 2,000 per mark, but avoidable by filing correctly. The same logic applies to partnerships, where an unregistered partner's interest in the brand is a dispute waiting for funding or a falling-out.
Related confusions deserve one line each: a company name registered at the company registrar is not a trademark; a domain name is not a trademark; and a 'doing business as' name earns goodwill but not register rights. Each is a different registry, and only the DOI filing creates the enforceable, class-wide right.
- File in the entity's name — the applicant on the form is the owner on the register
- Company registration ≠ trademark — different registries, different rights
- No use requirement — but intend to use: an unused mark is vulnerable after registration
After eligibility: the obligations that attach
Registration confers a 7-year term renewable indefinitely, and with it the obligations that keep the right alive: renewal within 35 days of expiry (NPR 3,500 per class, NPR 4,500 in grace, current practice), documented use — a mark unused within one year of registration invites inquiry — and recordals whenever the owner's particulars change.
For applicants unsure how the pieces fit, the sequence is stable regardless of applicant type: clear the name, fix the class, file per class, answer the examination, watch the publication window, and diarise the renewal from the day the certificate arrives.
Choose the applicant entity
The company or firm that will own the brand files — not the founder personally, unless the brand is personal.
File per class with the right set
Schedule 1(c), four specimens, applicant documents matched exactly — or the legalised POA set for foreign filers.
Cooperatives, NGOs and institutions
Eligibility extends comfortably beyond the commercial forms. Cooperatives register marks for their collective products; non-governmental organisations register the names they operate under, with the usual Section 18 filters applying; trusts, societies and educational institutions file like any other applicant, through their authorised signatory.
Groups with a collective identity have a structural choice worth making early: an ordinary mark in the organisation's name, or a collective or certification mark that binds members to a shared standard. The right answer depends on whether the mark's job is to identify one entity or to certify a group's common characteristics — and the document set differs accordingly, starting with the registration or affiliation papers that show who stands behind the application.
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.