The arrow between the E and the x in FedEx is the most famous hidden mark in design. It is also, legally, nothing. Nepal's Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never uses the word "logo", and it protects what you file, not what you intended.
Key takeaways
- "Logo" appears zero times in Nepal's Act. Sec. 2(c) calls it a "word, symbol, or picture or a combination thereof".
- The hidden element has no separate legal existence. The Department examines the whole sign as filed.
- Sec. 17(1) asks for the Schedule 1(c) form plus four specimens, and those specimens define the scope.
- "Colour" appears zero times in the Act, so what you file settles the question rather than the statute.
- Cleverness is not a ground of anything. The proviso to Sec. 18(1) lists five reasons to refuse, and none of them is dullness.
- Sec. 18C cancels a mark not brought into use within one year, which matters if you redesign straight after filing.
- A registered mark runs seven years under Sec. 18D and is renewable in further seven-year terms.
What is a hidden-meaning logo?
A mark that carries two readings at once. The first is obvious, the second appears only when you look again, usually built out of negative space, letter shapes or an outline that doubles as something else.
Designers like them because a discovery gets retold, and that retelling is free advertising. It is the real commercial argument for the technique.
None of that is a legal argument. The law is interested in one question only: does this sign tell a buyer whose goods these are?
Which famous logos hide a second message?
Four examples get cited more than any others, and each uses a different trick.
FedEx builds an arrow out of the white space between its last two letters. Amazon's curve reads both as a smile and as an arrow running from A to Z. Toblerone's mountain is widely said to contain a bear, a reference to the city of Bern. Baskin-Robbins picks the number thirty-one out of the pink part of its own initials.
Those are design observations, not Nepali precedent. No Nepali decision turns on a hidden element. Our note on the Apple logo covers another case of the story outrunning the law.
| Mark | The second reading | The technique | What a Nepali filer should take from it |
|---|---|---|---|
| FedEx | An arrow | Negative space between letters | The gap is part of the picture you file. |
| Amazon | A to Z | A curve doing two jobs | One element can carry two meanings and one scope. |
| Toblerone | A bear in the mountain | Shape inside a shape | Detail this fine must survive reproduction. |
| Baskin-Robbins | The number thirty-one | Colour used to separate letters | If colour carries meaning, file it in colour. |
Does the hidden element have any legal status in Nepal?
No. There is no separate right in a concealed arrow, a bear or a number. The Department of Industry registers the sign you submit, and the hidden reading is simply part of it.
That has a consequence people miss. If a competitor copies only the hidden element and the rest looks nothing like yours, you are arguing similarity between two whole marks, not theft of a secret.
Conversely, if a competitor copies everything except the hidden element, you are still in a strong position. The concealed part was never the thing carrying your rights.
What word does the Act use instead of "logo"?
"Picture". We counted over the consolidated text published by the Nepal Law Commission, and "logo" appears zero times in the entire statute.
Sec. 2(c) defines a trademark as a "word, symbol, or picture or a combination thereof to be used by any firm, company or individual in its products or services to distinguish them with the product or services of others". A logo is the third category, or a combination of the first and third.
That wording is older than modern branding vocabulary, and it is wider than it looks. A device, a wordmark, a monogram and a full lock-up all fit inside it.
What exactly gets protected when you file?
The specimens. Sec. 17(1) requires an application in the Schedule 1(c) format together with four specimens of the trademark, and Schedule 1(c) repeats the figure in its own wording.
Those four pieces of paper are the legal object. Not the design brief, not the brand guidelines, not the version on your current packaging if it has drifted since. What the Department holds is what you own.
So treat the specimen as a legal document, not a print job. Settle the proportions, the wording and whether the hidden element survives at small sizes before submitting anything.
Does the Act say anything about colour?
Nothing at all. "Colour" and "color" each appear zero times, which means the statute leaves the question entirely to what sits in your specimens.
That matters for a hidden-meaning mark more than for a plain one, because some second readings only exist in colour. Baskin-Robbins is the obvious case: take the pink away and the thirty-one disappears.
If the hidden element depends on colour, file it in colour and accept that your protection follows that colourway. If it does not, a monochrome filing usually travels further across packaging and signage.
Is a clever logo easier to register?
No, and this is where the listicles mislead. Nothing in the Act rewards ingenuity, and the examiner is not grading the design.
What helps is distinguishing power, which Sec. 2(c) builds into the definition of a trademark rather than stating as a test. A coined word with a plain device is often easier to register than an intricate illustration that resembles three other marks in the class.
Complexity can work against you practically. Fine internal detail is harder to reproduce in the register and harder to compare against, and a reader who cannot see the second meaning is not helped by it.
What can the Department actually refuse?
Five things, listed in the proviso to Sec. 18(1). A mark may be refused if it may hurt the prestige of any individual or institution, adversely affect public conduct or morality, undermine the national interest, undermine the reputation of another person's trademark, or if it is already registered in another person's name.
Read that list against a hidden-meaning design and two risks stand out. A concealed image can be read differently by someone else, which engages the morality and prestige grounds. And a hidden element borrowed from a famous mark engages the reputation ground directly.
The 2006 amendment also requires the Department to give the applicant sufficient opportunity to defend the application before deciding. If a hidden reading is misunderstood, that is where you explain it. For how similarity arguments run in Nepal, see famous trademark cases in Nepal.
Should you file the word, the picture, or both?
Both, where both are doing work, and the word first if you can only do one. A word filing covers the name however it is set; a device filing covers the arrangement you submitted.
Hidden-meaning designs push people the other way, because the cleverness lives in the picture. That is understandable and usually the wrong priority, since customers ask for your name far more often than they describe your artwork.
Our guide to registering a logo as a trademark in Nepal works through both filings, and logo versus brand covers which asset actually carries the value.
What happens when you redesign?
Your registration stays with the old version. This is the quiet failure mode for marks built around a visual trick, because those get refreshed more often than plain ones.
Sec. 18C adds a sharper edge: a trademark not brought into use within one year of registration can be inquired into and cancelled. Register a logo, redesign it within months, and you may hold a registration for something you no longer use.
The fix is unglamorous. File the version you will actually use, file a fresh application when the design changes materially, and diary the renewal under Sec. 23B.
Keep the dates in one place while you are at it. A mark that passes examination is published in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which starts the opposition window, and the registration certificate follows if nothing stops it. A published trademark can be opposed within 90 days of its publication; rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.
How do you search a logo before you file?
Start with the words, because word searching is far stronger than picture searching in any register. Check the name, its spelling variants and how it sounds in the class you will file in.
Then check the shapes. Look at the dominant element, the silhouette and the overall impression rather than the concealed detail, since that is what an examiner and a rival compare. Our Nepal trademark database covers published marks, and the conflict checker is a quick first pass.
Neither is a clearance opinion. If the design is expensive or the class is crowded, a professional trademark search and clearance before artwork is the cheaper order of operations.
What should you do before commissioning the design?
Sequence matters more than budget here. Work down this list before a designer starts.
- Settle the name. Search it first, because a refused name wastes every hour of design that follows it.
- Pick the class. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category, so use the NICE class finder early.
- Decide if the hidden element is load-bearing. If the mark fails without it, the design must survive small sizes and single colours.
- Choose the colourway. File in colour only when colour carries the meaning.
- Agree ownership in writing. A designer's contract should assign the artwork, and a power of attorney under Sec. 20 covers anyone filing for you.
- Prepare four clean specimens. Same proportions, same wording, same version across all four.
- File before you launch. Nepal is first-to-file, and a reveal campaign is a public disclosure.
Can you copy a famous hidden element?
You should not, and the Act gives three reasons. Sec. 18B prohibits using a trademark as a registered mark without registering it, and Sec. 19 backs that with a fine and confiscation of the goods on the Department's orders.
Sec. 16(2) separately bars copying or using a mark registered to someone else without transfer or written permission. The proviso to Sec. 18(1) then stops you registering anything that undermines another mark's reputation.
Note the reverse case too. Nepal sits outside the WIPO-administered Madrid System, and Sec. 21B says a foreign registration is not valid here unless registered in Nepal, so a famous overseas logo may well be unprotected locally. That is a reason for its owner to file, not an invitation. The rules are the same for a Nepali business whose unregistered logo is taken, as this guide explains.
Common mistakes
Filing the mood-board version. The specimen must be the artwork you will print, not the presentation slide that sold the idea internally.
Assuming the hidden element widens your protection. It does not. Scope is set by the whole sign and the class, and the clever part adds nothing to either.
Launching before filing. A reveal is exactly when a hidden-meaning mark attracts attention, and in a first-to-file system that attention is a risk, not a win.
What would this look like in practice?
Here is an illustration, not a real case. A Kathmandu coffee roaster commissions a mark where the steam above a cup also forms a mountain ridge, and files it in colour for roasted coffee.
Six months later it refreshes the brand, keeping the ridge but changing the typeface, the proportions and the palette. The registration still points at the first version, and Sec. 18C is now a live question about a mark it stopped using.
Had it filed the word mark as well, none of that would matter. The word would have carried the brand through the redesign while the device filing aged out quietly.
In short
Hidden meanings are a good design idea and a legal irrelevance. Nepal's Act protects a word, symbol or picture as filed, says nothing about logos or colour, and asks only whether the sign distinguishes your goods.
File the name, file the artwork you will really use, and keep four identical specimens. Our registration service handles both filings, and weird marks that got registered shows how wide the category really is.
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Designing something with a second reading in it? Send us the artwork and the class before it goes to print, and we will tell you what the filing would and would not cover. Contact the IP Sewa team.
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