Nepal has no certification mark. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 uses the word once, as a fee line in Schedule 3, and never as a kind of mark. A certifying body here registers its seal as an ordinary trade mark and enforces the standard by contract.
Key takeaways
- There is no certification-mark application at the Department of Industry.
- The Act's single use of "certification" prices a certified copy of a record.
- Sec. 2(c) covers a mark used by one firm, company or individual on its own goods or services.
- A certifier's own inspection and testing service is a service it can hold a mark for.
- Producers display the seal under written approval recorded through Sec. 21D.
- Sec. 18C can cancel a mark unused for a year, which is a live risk for a certifier.
- No scheme rules are filed, so the standard binds only those who signed it.
Why does this page begin with a correction?
Because the internet is full of guides describing a Nepali certification-mark filing, its regulations and its examination, and none of that exists.
The idea travels from India and the European Union, which both run certification marks as separate registrations with published rules.
A standards body that plans around the Indian model will discover the gap at the counter, usually after spending money on a scheme document nobody will accept.
How do we know the category is absent?
By reading the Act. The Nepal Law Commission publishes it in English, and WIPO Lex carries the same consolidated text.
The word "collective" never appears. "Certification" appears exactly once, in the Schedule 3 fee table, in the line "Certification except transfer".
That entry sits between an amendment fee and a fee for registration details, so it prices the certified copy of a record. It creates nothing.
What does a certification mark do where it exists?
It tells a buyer the goods meet a written standard, rather than telling them who made the goods. Origin, material, method and quality are the usual subjects.
Its owner is a body that sets and checks that standard, and in most systems that owner is barred from trading in the certified goods.
Those systems also make the rules public, so a buyer can read what the seal promises without asking the certifier.
What can a Nepali certifying body register instead?
Its own service. Read Sec. 2(c) closely: a trade mark is a word, symbol or picture used by a firm, company or individual "in its products or services".
Inspecting, testing and auditing are services your body supplies, so the seal can be registered as a mark for that work rather than for somebody else's goods.
That framing matters because it matches reality. You are not selling the tea; you are selling the assurance, and the register should say so.
Why is the goods class a trap for a certifier?
Because of Sec. 18C. A registered mark not brought into use within one year of registration can be cancelled by the Department after inquiry.
A standards body that registers its seal only in the class of the goods it certifies may never use the mark on goods of its own.
That is exactly the situation the section describes. Take advice before choosing the class, and treat the service registration as the anchor.
Which class does the certification service sit in?
It follows what your body does, not what your members sell. Testing and inspection, quality auditing and scheme administration are all services.
Work the list out with the NICE class finder, then compare how real filings word it in the goods and services search.
Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category, so a body that also licenses the seal for goods should expect more than one filing. Our guide to choosing the right class covers the basics.
How does a producer get the right to display the seal?
Through Sec. 21D. Its first subsection lets the owner transfer the mark, or "provide approval in writing for its use".
The second requires the owner and the user to file a joint application at the Department with the prescribed fee.
The fifth has the Department record the approval and issue a note to the user, so a certified producer holds something official rather than just an email.
What does the Act not give a certification scheme?
| Feature | Certification mark elsewhere | Nepal, 1965 Act |
|---|---|---|
| A dedicated application | Yes, with its own form | No. An ordinary trade mark only. |
| Published scheme rules | Filed and open to the public | None. Your rules stay private. |
| A bar on the owner trading | Usually compulsory | No such bar exists in the Act. |
| A duty to certify fairly | Written into the statute | Only what your contract imposes. |
| A record of authorised users | Part of the register | Yes, through the Sec. 21D note. |
| Cancellation for misuse | A statutory ground | Handled by contract and Sec. 18. |
Does anything stop a certifier from also selling the goods?
Not in the Act, which is a gap rather than a permission. Nothing here separates the referee from the players.
Buyers notice anyway. A seal owned by a body that competes with the producers it audits is worth less the moment anyone looks it up.
If your body does both, say so openly and build the independence into your governance. The law will not do it for you.
What may a body not do with an unregistered seal?
Sec. 18B prohibits using any mark as a registered trade mark without registering it at the Department, which reaches the small circled R as much as the wording on a certificate.
Sec. 19 backs that with a fine and confiscation of the goods connected with the offence.
So a scheme that advertises an official-looking seal before filing is taking a risk that has nothing to do with copying anybody.
How does a body enforce its seal?
Sec. 16(2) bars anyone from using a registered mark without a transfer of ownership or written permission under Sec. 21D.
Sec. 25 separately lets the Department order compensation where the registered owner has suffered loss from a breach of the Act.
Against a producer who signed your agreement you also have a straightforward contract claim, which is often faster. Our enforcement team works out which route fits.
What about a foreign certification mark used in Nepal?
Sec. 21B is blunt about it: title to a mark registered abroad is not valid in Nepal unless it is also registered here.
Sec. 21C softens the route, allowing the Department to register a foreign-registered mark without enquiries where the foreign registration certificate is supplied.
An international scheme entering Nepal should therefore file locally rather than rely on its home registration, and check what is already on our trademark database first.
How does a body file, step by step?
- Write the standard. In terms an auditor can test and a court could read.
- Decide what you sell. The certification service, the goods, or both.
- Search the seal. Run it through our conflict checker before the artwork is finished.
- Choose the categories. One application per category under Sec. 18A(2).
- File the application. The prescribed form with four specimens of the mark, under Sec. 17(1).
- Answer the examiner. Expect questions where the seal is descriptive of the quality claimed.
- Record each user. A joint application under Sec. 21D for every certified producer.
What paperwork should the body prepare?
The application form with four specimens, your body's own registration documents, and a power of attorney where an agent signs for you.
Keep the scheme rules separate from the filing. They are not submitted, but they are the document every dispute will turn on. Our list of documents a Nepali filing needs covers the rest.
When is the mark published, and what lasts how long?
Registered marks are published under Sec. 21A(1) in the Industrial Property Bulletin, and a published trade mark can be opposed within a 90-day opposition window from publication. The 35 days in Sec. 21A(2) concern complaints about marks already registered; rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.
The term is seven years under Sec. 18D, and the renewal term is a further seven years, repeatable without limit under Sec. 23B(3).
Renewal falls due within 35 days of expiry with a six-month late window on a fine. Our renewal calculator fixes the dates and our renewal service keeps them.
What should the standard itself contain?
Numbers wherever numbers exist. A moisture limit, a fibre percentage, a minimum altitude and a named test method can all be checked by somebody who was not in the room.
Say who may audit, how often, and what evidence a producer must keep between visits. A scheme with no records is a scheme with no defence.
Set out the consequences in order: warning, suspension, withdrawal. Each step should name who decides and how quickly the seal has to come off packaging.
Who checks the certifier?
In Nepal, nobody by operation of the trade mark law. The Act imposes no duty to certify fairly, because it never imagines a certifier in the first place.
That leaves your own governance and the ordinary law of contract and consumer protection. A buyer misled by a seal has remedies, but they are not trade mark remedies.
If your scheme needs external credibility, look for recognition from the relevant sectoral regulator or a ministry rather than from the Department of Industry, whose register records marks rather than standards.
Common mistakes
- Preparing certification regulations to file. The Department has nowhere to put them.
- Copying an Indian scheme document. It assumes a chapter Nepal does not have.
- Registering only in the goods class. Sec. 18C can cancel a mark you never use.
- Using the seal before filing. Sec. 18B prohibits presenting a mark as registered.
- Certifying without a written agreement. Nothing else defines what the seal promises.
- Leaving lapsed producers on the record. Withdraw the Sec. 21D approval too.
A worked example
This is an illustration, not a real case. A trade body wants a seal showing that a workshop's carpets were woven without child labour.
It writes an audit standard, registers the seal for its own inspection service, and signs each workshop up to a use agreement with annual checks.
Each workshop is then recorded as an approved user by joint application, so the body can show exactly who was entitled to the seal in any year.
Will a new law create a certification mark?
A consolidating industrial property bill has been discussed for years and is widely expected to introduce one. We will not describe its provisions, because no enacted text exists to read.
Build the scheme on the 1965 Act as it stands. A well-documented registration and a clean audit record will only help if a new category ever arrives.
In short
Nepal has no certification mark, and a standards body is not left without options because of it.
Register the seal for the service you actually supply, keep the standard in a contract, and record every certified producer on the register.
Check what already exists on our register search, then let our filing team handle the application.
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If you run a standards body, a trade association or an inspection scheme and need the seal registered and the user approvals recorded properly, tell us what the seal has to promise and who will be allowed to use it.
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