How to Track a Trademark Application by Number in Nepal

Your trademark application number is the six-digit serial the Department of Industry (DoI) writes on your filing receipt. It identifies your file for life. It does not give you a live status page, because Nepal has none — the number becomes publicly searchable only when your mark reaches the Industrial Property Bulletin.

Key takeaways

• The number is an identifier, not a tracker. It names your file; it does not report its progress.
• In IP Sewa's archive of 71,500+ published marks, 71,447 carry an application number and all but five are plain six digits.
• Nepal has no public online status portal. Before publication, only the Department of Industry and your agent can see where your file sits.
• Once your mark is published, the number is printed beside it and anyone can look it up.
• Your application number and your registration certificate number are different numbers. Keep both.
• A number close to yours tells you very little: one recent bulletin issue published numbers from 30,858 to 136,577.

What is a trademark application number in Nepal?

It is the serial the Department of Industry assigns when it accepts your application papers and your filing fee. From that moment, every note, objection, publication entry and certificate in your file hangs off that one number. Staff pull your file by number, not by brand name.

The number also records your place in the queue under Nepal's first-to-file rule. Where two businesses apply for confusingly similar marks in the same class, the earlier complete filing has the stronger claim. The number is the simplest proof of which came first.

What it is not is a status code. The digits carry no information about examination, objections or approval. They are a label on a folder.

Where do you find your number?

Look first at the acknowledgement the Department gives you when it takes in the application. The number is written or stamped on it. Photograph that receipt before you file it away, and send a copy to whoever handles your brand paperwork.

If an agent filed for you under a power of attorney, the number sits in their file and they can give it to you on request. If the mark has already been published, the number is printed beside the entry in the Industrial Property Bulletin, so it can be recovered from the public record.

What can the number actually tell you?

Less than most applicants expect, and more than nothing. Before publication it is an internal reference. After publication it becomes the shortest, most reliable way to pull up one specific mark among tens of thousands with similar names.

Why is there no online tracker to type it into?

Because the Department of Industry does not publish one. As of our last check there is no public application-status portal on the DoI website, and no login where an applicant can watch a file move. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 does not require one either — the words "status", "online" and "track" do not appear in it anywhere.

What the Act does require is publication. Sec. 21A obliges the Department to publish registered designs and trade marks, together with renewals and cancellations, for public information. That publication, not a web page, is the moment your file becomes visible.

So the honest answer to "how do I track my number online" is that you cannot, until publication. For what you can do in the meantime, read our guide to checking a trademark application status at the DoI.

How do you look up a number in the published record?

Once a mark has reached the bulletin, a number lookup takes under a minute. IP Sewa holds every published entry from 122 bulletin issues, indexed by application number, so you do not have to page through PDFs.

1. Copy the number exactly. Almost every number in the record is six digits with no prefix, slash or year.
2. Enter it in the application-number lookup. A match returns the mark, the owner, the class and the issue it appeared in.
3. Read the issue reference. The volume and number tell you when the entry published, which is the date the objection period runs from.
4. If nothing matches, do not panic. An unpublished file simply is not in the public record yet.
5. Cross-check by owner name. An owner and applicant search finds every published mark filed in one name.
6. Confirm anything legal with the Department. Published is not the same as registered, and only the DoI file is authoritative.

What does a neighbouring number tell you about your wait?

Very little, and this surprises people. Applicants often find a mark with a number near their own, see that it has published, and assume theirs is days away. The record does not support that.

In the most recent issue in IP Sewa's archive, 928 marks were published together. Their application numbers ran from 30,858 to 136,577. Most sat in a tight recent band, but roughly one in twenty carried a number below 100,000 — files that had waited far longer than their neighbours.

A straightforward unopposed filing is commonly described as taking about 12–14 months end to end, and 6–8 months only in the smoothest cases. Treat that as a typical range rather than a promise, because our own bulletin data shows the filing-to-publication gap alone is frequently longer.

Application number or registration number — which is which?

The application number is issued at the start. The registration number appears at the end, on the certificate, and only if the mark is accepted. Mixing them up wastes time at the counter and produces blank search results.

Use the application number for anything about the file in progress, and the registration number for ownership, assignment and renewal paperwork. Our guide to what a trademark registration number means sets out the difference in full.

What happens to the number at publication?

Publication is the one moment the number does real work in public. The Department prints your mark, its owner, its class and its application number in the Industrial Property Bulletin, and anyone who disagrees with the entry can take it up with the Department.

Be careful with the deadline here, because two figures circulate. Sec. 21A(2) of the Act allows a complaint within 35 days of publication, while the Department's trademark practice is commonly described as a 90-day opposition window. Confirm which applies to your mark with the Department of Industry rather than relying on either figure from a website.

If a competitor's mark publishes and it clashes with yours, that window is when you act. Our opposition and enforcement service handles the filing and the hearing.

Does each class get its own number?

Yes. Sec. 18A of the Act requires a separate application for goods or services placed in different categories, so a brand filed in three classes becomes three applications with three numbers and three timelines. Nepal applies the NICE classification of 45 classes under that section.

That matters for tracking. Two of your three files can publish in one issue and the third a year later. Keep a simple sheet: class, number, filing date, and the issue each one published in.

What if you lose the number?

Do not refile. A fresh application takes a new, later date, and in a first-to-file system that is the one thing you cannot afford to give away. The old file also stays alive, so you end up paying for two.

Recover it instead. Ask your agent, ask the Department of Industry with your business registration details, or — if the mark has already published — search the owner name in our trademark database and read the number off the entry.

What does the Act say about your number?

Nothing directly, which is itself worth knowing. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never uses the phrase "application number". Sec. 17 covers the application form and the four specimens of the mark. Sec. 18 covers examination and registration, including the right to be heard before a refusal.

Sec. 21A covers publication. Sec. 18D sets the seven-year term and Sec. 23B the renewal procedure. The number is an administrative convenience the Department created to run those sections — useful, but not a right in itself. The consolidated text is on the Nepal Law Commission site.

Does the number still matter after registration?

It keeps earning its place. The renewal term for a Nepali trademark is seven years and the registration is renewable in further seven-year terms, so the file is reopened again and again over decades. Clean records of both numbers make each renewal routine.

Address changes, ownership transfers and name changes all reference the original file too. See our notes on change of address and name-change applications for what the Department asks for.

What are the common mistakes with application numbers?

Most of them are record-keeping failures rather than legal ones, which is what makes them so avoidable. A number costs nothing to store and a great deal to lose.

• Throwing away the filing receipt once the mark is "sorted".
• Searching the public record with the registration number and concluding the mark does not exist.
• Reading a blank lookup result as a refusal, when it usually means "not published yet".
• Assuming the number implies a queue position, when one issue spanned numbers from 30,858 to 136,577.
• Tracking one number when the brand was filed in three classes.
• Expecting a foreign or "international" registration to carry a Nepali number. Nepal is outside the WIPO-administered Madrid System, so a national filing is the only route.

What happens when the number is lost? An example

Imagine a Biratnagar spice company that files a wordmark in Class 30 through an agent, then changes accountants. The receipt goes into a box nobody opens. Two years later a distributor asks for proof the brand is protected and nobody can produce a number. This is an illustration, not a real case.

The owner nearly refiles. Instead, an owner-name search in the published record turns up the entry, the number and the issue it appeared in — enough to go back to the Department with a specific file reference rather than a brand name and a hopeful description.

The lesson is small and cheap. One photograph of the receipt, stored where the finance team keeps the PAN certificate, would have removed two years of doubt.

In short

Treat the application number as the key to your file, not as a status light. Record it the day you file, keep it beside the filing date and the class, and expect it to go quiet until publication. From publication onward it is the fastest way to find your mark, confirm its class, and date the objection period.

If you want the whole lifecycle handled rather than monitored by hand, our trademark registration service files, follows up and keeps the dates — and our renewal service picks the file up again seven years later. The free IP tools cover the self-serve path.

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Have a number and no idea what it means, or a file that has gone quiet for longer than feels right? Contact our team and we will read the record, check the published entries and tell you plainly where the mark stands.