Famous Trademark Cases in Nepal

The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never uses the words "passing off", "goodwill", "deceptive" or "confusing". Those tests exist in Nepal because the Supreme Court wrote them. Here are six reported decisions that did it.

Key takeaways

• Six Nepali trademark decisions are named below, each checked in the Supreme Court's own reporter on 1 October 2026.
• Decision No. 8686 holds that however long you use an unregistered mark, use alone gives no exclusive right.
• Decision No. 10304 holds that first-to-file does not save an application that cannot be registered anyway.
• Decision No. 10561 supplies the deceptive similarity test: same letters, a copied letter, a small addition, close pronunciation, alike at a glance.
• Decision No. 8356 separates two rights in one product: owning the bottle is not owning the mark on it.
• Sec. 27 allows an appeal to the Appellate Court within 35 days of a Department order.
• A registered mark runs seven years under Sec. 18D and is renewable any number of times.

Why does Nepal need court rulings to settle trademark disputes?

Because the statute is almost silent on them. We counted the words over the consolidated text published by the Nepal Law Commission, and the whole vocabulary of trademark litigation is missing from it.

"Passing off" appears zero times, and so do "goodwill", "deceptive", "similar", "confusion", "well-known" and "famous". The nearest the Act gets is the proviso to Sec. 18(1), which lets the Department refuse a mark harming "the reputation of the trade-mark of any other person".

That single phrase carries enormous weight and defines nothing. Every test a Nepali examiner or judge applies to two competing marks had to come from somewhere else, and that somewhere is the reported case law.

Which Nepali trademark cases are actually on the record?

Six. Each is searchable in the Supreme Court's reporter by its decision number, which is how we verified the parties, dates and holdings rather than repeating a secondary summary.

Does using a mark for years create a right?

No, and Decision No. 8686 says so bluntly. A Kathmandu publisher and an individual both claimed the same magazine mark, and the Court held that Nepali law protects a registered trademark only.

However long an unregistered mark has been used, the Court said, use by itself confers no monopoly on the creator or the user. Where two firms use the same mark, the one in whose name it is registered is recognised as the true owner.

This is the most commercially important ruling on the list. A business trading under a name for a decade in Nepal has built a customer base, not a legal right. Check what is already published through our Nepal trademark database.

Why did the Court call trademark protection a duty of the state?

Decision No. 8577 pitted a Nawalparasi distillery against a Netherlands drinks group, and the reasoning went well beyond the two parties.

Even in a liberal economy where the government's role is limited to licensing, the Court said, an industry does hold a monopoly in its patents, designs and trademarks. Protecting those rights is a public duty, owed partly to consumers, and guarding intellectual property ranks with guarding any other property a person has earned.

That framing matters when you argue a case: it tells the Department and the courts that refusing to act on a copied mark is not neutrality but a failure of a duty the state has accepted.

Does selling the goods sell the trademark too?

Decision No. 8356 answered that with beer bottles. A Kathmandu brewery had refilled empty bottles that carried another producer's marks, and argued that buying the bottles carried the right to use them.

The Court separated two rights in one physical object. A manufacturer owns the goods, and separately owns the trademark or design that distinguishes those goods from a competitor's. The first transfers by ordinary sale and purchase. The second transfers only by the process the law prescribes, and without that process no transfer happens at all.

The Court added that a bottle is not a drink, the two come from different kinds of factory, and nobody can assume the bottler and the brewer are one company.

What does the Court say a trademark actually is?

Decision No. 10303 came out of a tobacco dispute between a Delhi firm and a Jhapa company, and produced a definition worth keeping.

A trademark, the Court held, is the word, sign or picture, or a combination of all three, used by any firm, company or person to identify its creation symbolically, to distinguish it from others, and to confirm that the product is its own creation.

Note the third limb: a mark is not only a label separating you from a rival, it is a claim of authorship over the product. That reading sits with Sec. 2(c), which defines a trademark by its form, and supplies the purpose the Act leaves out.

Does filing first always win?

No. Decision No. 10304 is the correction every Nepali founder should read, because it limits the one rule everyone has heard.

A Butwal company and an Indian industry fought over a registration, and the Court held that where inquiry shows a mark cannot be registered and no registration certificate can issue, it cannot be granted merely because its application came first.

So the first-to-file principle breaks ties between applications that could each succeed. It does not launder an application that fails Sec. 18 on its own merits. Filing early still matters enormously, but a clearance check before filing matters more, and our trademark search and clearance service exists for exactly that gap.

When are two marks deceptively similar?

Decision No. 10561, between a Mumbai paints company and a Kathmandu chemical manufacturer, gives the clearest Nepali statement of that test.

Similarity is deceptive, the Court said, where the letters are the same, or a letter has been copied in the middle or at the end, or a little has been added, so that pronunciation carries great similarity and small difference, and the letters and the sign look alike at a glance.

Three ideas do the work there: the letters, the sound and the first impression. A rival never has to copy you exactly. Our free trademark conflict checker is a first pass at the letter-level comparison.

Which cases could we not confirm, and why?

Two trademark matters that circulate widely in Nepali IP writing are not named on this page. Both concern well-known foreign brands, and both reach us only through secondary summaries without a decision number.

Without a number there is nothing to look up, so we left them out rather than print a citation we cannot stand behind. A page with six checked decisions is more useful than one with eight that hides an invention. Reported case law on the other rights is thinner still, as our notes on patent cases in Nepal and copyright cases in Nepal explain.

Where is a Nepali trademark dispute decided?

It starts at the Department of Industry, which registers marks under Sec. 18 and may cancel a registration under Sec. 18(3) if a refusal ground applies. The proviso first gives the owner a reasonable chance to show cause.

Sec. 25 lets the Department order compensation where an owner has suffered loss from another person's breach of the Act. Sec. 19 adds a fine and confiscation of the goods connected with the offence, on the Department's own orders.

If you disagree with a Departmental order, Sec. 27 allows an appeal to the Appellate Court within 35 days. Every decision on this page arrived at the Supreme Court through that route.

How long is the opposition window really?

This is the one number worth getting right. The 35 days in Sec. 21A(2) are for complaints about the particulars of marks already registered, not the opposition window.

A published trademark can be opposed within a 90-day opposition window after its publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin. Rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states for your file and act before the last day.

Missing it is expensive, because once a conflicting mark registers you are arguing cancellation rather than objection. Our opposition and enforcement service handles that stage, and opposition cases in Nepal covers how it runs.

What evidence decides these cases?

Read across the six decisions and the same material keeps deciding them. Registration certificates and their dates come first, because Decision No. 8686 makes registration the gateway to everything else.

After that: the mark exactly as filed, the class and goods it covers, the documents transferring ownership or permitting use under Sec. 21D, and side-by-side comparison material. Where an attorney acts, Sec. 20 is the basis and a power of attorney is the proof. For a foreign owner, Sec. 21C makes the home certificate the document that unlocks a lighter route.

Dates of use help, but Decision No. 8686 shows they never substitute for a filing. See who owns what in the published record with our owner and applicant search.

How do you keep out of a dispute?

Most of the fights above began with a skipped step. The order below reflects what the cases reward.

1. Search before you commit. Check the letters, the sound and the overall look against published marks in your class, not only the exact spelling.
2. Pick the class honestly. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category under the NICE classification, so match the filing to what you actually sell.
3. File early. Decision No. 10304 limits first-to-file, but it is still the tie-breaker between two viable applications.
4. Watch publication. Objections run from publication, not from the day you notice the rival.
5. Keep the paperwork. Permission to use must be in writing under Sec. 21D and filed jointly with the Department.
6. Use the mark, and renew it. Sec. 18C cancels a registration not brought into use within one year, and Sec. 23B sets the renewal procedure.

Common mistakes

The biggest is treating a company name as a trademark. Registering with the Office of the Company Registrar gets you a company; it does not get you the rights Decision No. 8686 reserves for a registered mark.

The second is assuming a foreign registration reaches Nepal. Sec. 21B says a title registered abroad is not valid here unless also registered in Nepal, which is why the country's absence from the WIPO-administered Madrid System matters commercially.

The third is believing a famous brand cannot be taken. Several decisions above involve exactly that.

What would a dispute look like in practice?

Here is an illustration, not a real case. A Pokhara spice company has sold under one name for a decade without filing, and finds a Birgunj trader has just published a near-identical mark in its class.

On Decision No. 8686 the years of selling earn nothing on their own. On Decision No. 10561 the letter-level and sound similarity is arguable. On Decision No. 10304 the rival's earlier filing does not save a mark that should not be registered.

So the company objects within the window, files its own application immediately, and treats its invoices as supporting material rather than the main claim. That sequence is what the case law supports.

In short

Nepal's trademark law is a short statute with a long silence, and six Supreme Court decisions fill most of it. Registration creates the right, filing order only breaks ties, similarity turns on letters and sound and first glance, and selling a product never sells the mark on it.

If you are still choosing a name, how to register a trademark in Nepal is the practical next read, and our registration service handles the filing end to end.

People also search for

• Passing-off cases in Nepal, explained
• Famous trademark disputes that shaped brand law
• How long trademark registration takes in Nepal
• Registering a logo as a trademark in Nepal

If a mark close to yours has just been published, the clock is already running. Talk to the IP Sewa team and we will tell you honestly which of these decisions helps you and which does not.