How to Legally Name a Fashion or Clothing Brand

Pick a name, clear it against the register, and file it in Class 25 at the Department of Industry under the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965. Nepal is first-to-file, so the filing date usually decides who gets the name.

Key takeaways

• Class 25 covers clothing, footwear and headwear. Our register holds 2,689 published Class 25 marks from 1,605 distinct applicant rows.
• 76% of those owners hold Class 25 and nothing else. Multi-class filing is the exception here, not the norm.
• The commonest second class is Class 18 (bags and leather), then Class 35. Class 24, textiles, is only fifth — which contradicts the usual advice to pair 25 with 24.
• The word "distinctive" appears zero times in the Act. A descriptiveness refusal comes from examination practice, not from a section you can cite.
• "Reputation" appears exactly once, in the Sec. 18(1) proviso — the statutory hook that blocks copying a well-known label.
• Sec. 18C can cancel a registration if the mark is not brought into use within one year, which matters if you register a name for a collection you never launch.

How do you legally name a clothing brand in Nepal?

By registering the name as a trade mark, because nothing else gives you the right to stop a competitor using it. A company name at the Office of the Company Registrar, a domain and an Instagram handle are three different things, and none of them is a trade mark.

Sec. 16(1) is explicit: a person acquires title to the trade mark of their business "upon registration in the department under Section 18". Title comes from the register, not from trading first.

That is why speed matters more in apparel than almost anywhere else. Fashion names are short and heavily contested, and in a first-to-file system whoever files on Tuesday beats whoever launched in March.

What does the Act actually test?

Less than you would guess. We counted over the consolidated Act published by the Nepal Law Commission: "distinctive" appears zero times, and there is no statutory test of descriptiveness anywhere.

Sec. 2(c) defines a trade mark as a "word, symbol, or picture or a combination thereof" used by a firm, company or individual to distinguish its products or services from others'. Distinguishing is the function described, not a threshold the Act sets.

The real refusal list is the proviso to Sec. 18(1): a mark is not registered if it may hurt the prestige of any individual or institution, adversely affect public conduct or morality, undermine the national interest or the reputation of the trade-mark of any other person, or is already registered to someone else.

That reputation limb is worth remembering. "Reputation" occurs exactly once in the whole statute, and it is the clause a famous label would rely on against a Nepali copycat.

Which NICE class covers clothing?

Class 25 — clothing, footwear and headwear. The Department applies the NICE classification under its own domestic power in Sec. 18A(1), by notification in the Nepal Gazette, rather than through any treaty, and the class list itself is maintained by WIPO.

Class 25 is a busy but not enormous corner of the Nepali register. Reading our bulletin database on 2 October 2026, it holds 2,689 published marks across 122 issues, about 3.8% of the 71,536 entries we have extracted.

You can browse it yourself with our search by NICE class tool before you settle on anything.

Which other classes do Nepali apparel owners actually hold?

This is where the standard advice goes wrong. Most international guides tell a clothing brand to pair Class 25 with Class 24, textiles. We counted what owners of Nepali Class 25 marks have actually filed, and Class 24 is fifth.

Taking the 1,605 distinct applicant rows holding at least one Class 25 mark, and counting how many of them also hold a mark in each other class, the order is Class 18 with 171 owners, Class 35 with 130, Class 9 with 100, Class 28 with 90, and Class 24 with 87.

Read as behaviour rather than theory: Nepali apparel brands expand into bags and leather, then retail, then accessories like eyewear and phone cases — not fabric.

Should you file more than one class?

Usually not at the start. Of those 1,605 Class 25 owners, 1,227 — 76% — hold Class 25 and nothing else. Single-class filing is what the Nepali apparel register overwhelmingly looks like.

Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category, so every extra class is a separate filing with its own examination, its own publication and its own cost. That adds up quickly for a label that has not launched.

File the class your actual goods sit in, and add a second only when there is a real product or service behind it. Our NICE class finder will narrow it down in a few minutes.

Should you file the name or the logo first?

The name, in most cases. Sec. 2(c) allows a word, a symbol, a picture or a combination, so all three routes are open, but a wordmark protects the name whatever typeface or colourway you later choose.

A logo filing protects the artwork as filed. Fashion labels redesign every few seasons, so a logo registered in 2021 may not help against a copy of your 2026 identity.

If both matter, file them as separate applications in the same class and treat the wordmark as the priority. Our registration service files either, or both.

How do you check the name is free?

Start with our free Nepal trademark database, which covers every mark published in the Department's Industrial Property Bulletin. Search the exact name, then the obvious misspellings, then how it sounds when spoken.

Fashion names collide phonetically more than visually. "Rato Dhago" and "Ratto Dago" read as different strings and sound identical across a counter.

Run the shortlist through our conflict checker as well, and if you are still generating options the brand name generator is a starting point rather than a clearance.

How do you file, step by step?

1. Shortlist three or four names. Expect to lose at least one to a conflict, and never fall in love with a single option before clearance.
2. Clear each one. Search Class 25 and whichever companion classes your products touch, for identical and near-identical marks.
3. Decide who will own it. The applicant named on the form becomes the proprietor, so choose between founder and company before filing, not after.
4. Prepare the filing. Sec. 17(1) wants the Schedule 1(c) application with four specimens of the mark; Sec. 20 lets an attorney act under a power of attorney.
5. File one application per class. The filing date is what counts in a first-to-file system, so lodge it before the launch announcement.
6. Answer examination queries properly. Sec. 18(1) requires the Department to give you a sufficient opportunity to be heard; use it rather than tweaking a letter.
7. Keep the certificate and diarise the renewal. Sec. 18D gives seven years from registration, and Sec. 23B makes it renewable in further seven-year terms.

When should you file, before or after launch?

Before. There is no grace period in the Act for a brand already in use, and nothing in Sec. 18 treats prior trading as a defence against someone else's earlier application.

The commercial argument is simpler. Woven labels, swing tags, packaging, signage and a season of marketing all become sunk cost the moment the name changes.

Until the registration certificate arrives, do not describe the mark as registered. Sec. 18B prohibits using a mark as a registered trade mark without registering it, and Sec. 19 adds a fine and confiscation of the goods.

What happens after you file?

The Department examines the mark, publishes accepted applications in the Industrial Property Bulletin under Sec. 21A(1), and allows an objection before registration. Sec. 21A(2) sets 35 days from publication, while Nepali trademark practice works to an opposition window of 90 days.

As a planning figure we work to 12–14 months end to end when nobody objects, and 6–8 months only in the smoothest cases. Neither is a Departmental commitment, so confirm the current queue with the DoI.

Both figures circulate, and we will not pick one silently. If a live deadline affects you, confirm it with the Department of Industry that week.

What if the name is already used overseas?

Being first in Nepal still matters: Sec. 21B provides that a title registered abroad is not valid here unless registered in Nepal, and Nepal sits outside the Madrid System.

But the reputation limb of the Sec. 18(1) proviso cuts against a lookalike of a known international label, and Sec. 21C lets the Department register a foreign-registered mark without enquiries where its certificate is enclosed. Naming your line after a famous house is a bad plan on both counts.

What if you never launch the collection?

Sec. 18C is the provision founders miss. Where a registered trade mark "is not brought into use within one year from the date of registration thereof", the Department shall conduct inquiries and cancel the registration.

Registering speculative names for collections that may never exist is therefore weaker protection than it looks. File for what you are genuinely about to sell.

Can you protect the garment design itself?

Separately, and briefly. An industrial design registration protects a product's shape or ornament for five years under Sec. 14A, renewable not more than twice under Sec. 23B(3), so fifteen years is the ceiling.

That suits a distinctive bag silhouette or a repeating print far better than a trade mark does. Our industrial design service covers the filing, and a pashmina or handicraft brand often needs both rights.

One caution for producer groups: the trade mark law has no collective mark and no certification mark, so a shared regional label must be an ordinary mark owned by one body. Ask us through our contact page before building a scheme around one.

A worked example

Imagine a Patan label launching handwoven shirts and caps as "Dhaka Dhwaja". This is an illustration, not a real case. Caps and shirts both sit in Class 25, so one application covers the opening collection.

If the founder also opens a branded store on a marketplace, Class 35 becomes a genuine second filing — the route 130 Nepali Class 25 owners have already taken. A fabric range would be Class 24, which only 87 have.

If a near-identical "Dhaka Dwajaa" already sits in Class 25, the sensible move is a different name now, not a one-letter difference defended later.

Common mistakes

• Treating company registration at the Company Registrar as brand protection — see trademark versus trade name.
• Filing Class 24 as the automatic companion to Class 25 on international advice, when Nepali owners file Class 18 twice as often.
• Searching only the exact spelling, when the real risk is a name that sounds the same.
• Choosing a name that describes the goods, which examination practice treats harshly even though the Act sets no test.
• Filing after the launch, in a country where the filing date decides competing claims.
• Registering speculative names and letting Sec. 18C catch them a year later.
• Using the registered symbol on labels before the certificate exists, contrary to Sec. 18B.

In short

Clear the name, then file it in Class 25 before you announce anything. Add a second class only when you actually sell into it — and if you do, the Nepali register says that class is far more likely to be bags or retail than fabric.

Browse our free tools and wider IP services, or let our clearance team search properly before the woven labels are ordered.

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Have two or three names and no idea which will survive examination? Send them to our team and we will tell you which one we would file, and in which classes.