IP Law in India vs Nepal: Key Differences

India and Nepal protect the same three rights and reach them by very different routes. Nepal runs trademarks, patents and designs through one statute and one office, and holds three IP treaties in force. India has separate statutes and, on WIPO's own record, seventeen treaty entries.

Key takeaways

• Nepal handles all industrial property under one Act, the Patent, Design and Trademark Act 1965, at the Department of Industry. India uses right-specific statutes and separate offices.
• On WIPO Lex, Nepal lists four treaties and three are in force; India lists seventeen. Read 30 September 2026.
• Nepal is in neither Madrid nor the PCT, so every Indian filing here is a national filing, and no Nepali inventor can file an international patent application at all.
• Neither country is in the Hague design system, so designers file nationally in both directions.
• Nepal's trademark term of 7 years (Sec. 18D) is the TRIPS minimum; India's is longer. Both are indefinitely renewable.
• India is already the largest foreign presence on Nepal's published register, with about 5,697 marks from roughly 2,251 applicant records.

Which laws govern intellectual property in each country?

Nepal registers trademarks, patents and designs under a single statute, the Patent, Design and Trademark Act 1965, run by the Department of Industry. Its text is published by the Nepal Law Commission.

India has a statute per right, with the Trade Marks Act 1999, the Patents Act 1970 and the Designs Act 2000 run through their own registries. Confirm Indian procedure with an Indian adviser; this article is written from Nepal.

The structure matters more than the names. One Act covering three rights means Nepal's trademark, patent and design provisions share numbering and definitions, so a section you read for one right sits next to the one governing another.

How many IP treaties does each country hold?

This is the difference that changes most in practice, and it is easy to check. WIPO publishes a party table for every member state.

Can an Indian trademark be extended to Nepal through Madrid?

No. Nepal is not a party to the Madrid Protocol, so an international registration cannot designate it, and no paperwork in Delhi produces a Nepali right.

The Act says the same from the other direction. Under Sec. 21B a mark registered abroad is not valid in Nepal until registered in Nepal, leaving a direct national application as the only route.

There is a shortcut inside that route. Under Sec. 21C the Department may register a foreign-registered mark without further enquiries where the certificate is enclosed, and that section carries the Act's only mention of the Paris Convention.

Can a Nepali inventor use the PCT?

Not at all, and this cuts harder than the Madrid gap. Nepal is absent from the Patent Cooperation Treaty, so there is no receiving office here and a Nepali resident cannot file an international application.

An Indian applicant can. India joined the PCT with effect from December 1998, giving its inventors a single filing that keeps options open while they decide where to spend.

A Nepali inventor wanting protection in several countries therefore files separately in each. Our patent registration service covers the Nepal side.

Is either country in the Hague design system?

No, and this is the symmetry most comparisons miss. Neither Nepal nor India appears on the Hague party table, so a designer files nationally in both countries.

That makes designs the one area where the two systems face a cross-border filer alike. Our industrial design service handles the Nepali filing, and the Indian design route is set out separately.

How long does a registration last on each side?

Nepal grants a trademark for seven years from registration under Sec. 18D, and the mark is renewable in further seven-year terms without limit, with the procedure in Sec. 23B.

Seven years is exactly the floor the TRIPS Agreement sets in Article 18, which requires an initial term and each renewal of no less than seven years and renewal without limit. India's initial term is longer, so a brand owner running both registers is diarising two different cycles for the same name.

Treat the Indian column as orientation, not advice. The treaty rows come from WIPO's own tables; Indian domestic procedure should be confirmed locally.

Is Nepal first-to-file?

Yes, firmly so. Under Sec. 16 title to a trade mark in Nepal comes from registration at the Department, so the earlier complete application usually beats the longer trading history.

Years of sales in Siliguri do not reserve a name in Kathmandu. If a local applicant files a confusingly similar mark first, the Indian owner argues from behind rather than enforcing a right.

Before committing to packaging, check the name against the published trademark records and run a wider screen with the conflict checker.

How many Indian businesses are already on Nepal's register?

More than from any other country. Counting the published bulletin entries we extract, about 5,697 marks carry an Indian applicant address, from roughly 2,251 applicant records.

That is ahead of the United States at about 5,407 and China at about 3,802. Nepali applicants hold roughly 43,005 entries, so Indian owners are the largest single foreign block.

What do Indian applicants file in Nepal?

Pharmaceuticals, by a wide margin. Class 5 accounts for about 1,061 of the Indian-origin marks, more than a fifth, and no other class comes close.

Cosmetics follow at about 549, then food and bakery goods at 465, vehicles at 262 and electrical goods at 249. The profile reads like India's export trade with Nepal.

You can look any of those owners up with the owner search, which lists what an applicant has published here.

What does Nepal's law not have that India's does?

Three categories, and the absence is real rather than a drafting quirk. Nepal's trade mark law contains no collective mark and no certification mark, and the country has no geographical-indication statute or register.

One qualifier belongs here. The Department's downloads page lists a Nepal Standards (Certification Mark) Act 2037, which is a product-standards statute behind the NS quality mark and sits outside the trade mark law, so it creates no filing category for a certification mark.

India has separate regimes for all three. A Nepali producers' group can therefore obtain protections across the border that are unavailable at home, which is worth planning around rather than discovering late.

The workable route here is an ordinary mark owned by one legal person, with users permitted in writing under Sec. 21D. Sec. 2(c) defines a trade mark as a sign used by a firm, company or individual, so one applicant is what the Act contemplates.

How do the patent systems differ?

By term and by test. A Nepali patent runs seven years and may be renewed not more than twice, while the TRIPS Agreement sets a floor of twenty years from filing for WTO members, which India meets.

The test is the larger difference. Sec. 5 of Nepal's Act asks only whether the invention is new and useful to the general public, and the words inventive, obvious and prior art appear nowhere in the statute.

Indian law applies an inventive-step requirement in its own terms, so do not assume the two examinations ask the same question. If the invention is borderline, take advice on each side separately.

Where does a Nepali patent get published?

Not where most people assume. Under Sec. 7A a Nepali patent is published in the Nepal Gazette after registration, not in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which carries trade marks only.

How does an Indian business file a trademark in Nepal?

Through a Nepal-based agent, one application per class, with the documents any foreign owner files.

1. Search first, including sound-alikes and Devanagari transliterations of the brand, because a Nepali examiner will compare how the marks sound as well as how they look.
2. Pick the classes using the Nepali specification, not the Indian one, with help from the Nice class finder.
3. Appoint an agent in Nepal and execute a notarised power of attorney in the company's correct legal name.
4. Assemble the papers: the application, a clean label of the mark, the board resolution and a certified English copy of the Indian registration if you rely on it.
5. File and diarise. The filing date fixes priority, and the acknowledgment carries the application number you will need later.
6. Answer the examiner within the stated deadline, because a missed reply can end an application that had nothing else wrong with it.
7. Watch the bulletin, then collect the registration certificate once the objection window has passed.

Allow about 12 to 14 months from filing to certificate when nobody objects, and read the objection deadline carefully: a published trademark can be opposed within an opposition period of 90 days from publication. Rely on the date the Department of Industry states and act before the last day, and see the full timeline.

What should a Nepali business expect going the other way?

A separate filing, a separate agent and separate renewal dates. A Nepali registration has no effect in India, and Nepal's absence from Madrid means no combined route from this side either.

Both are parties to the Paris Convention, so a priority claim from a first filing in one may be available in the other within the convention period. Our guide to filing in India from Nepal covers the practical side.

Common mistakes on both sides of the border

• Assuming a registration travels. It does not, in either direction, and there is no treaty here that makes it travel.
• Filing one Nepali application for several classes. Sec. 18A allows one class per application, so a multi-class Indian filing does not map across.
• Relying on the company name. Incorporation creates a legal person, not a brand right, as the company-versus-mark comparison explains.
• Using the registered symbol early. Sec. 18B prohibits presenting a mark as registered before it is, and Sec. 19 backs that with a fine and confiscation of the goods.
• Letting the Nepali mark go unused. Under Sec. 18C a registered mark not used within a year can be cancelled.
• Filing only the logo. A device filing does not always cover the plain word, which is why the logo decision is worth making deliberately.

What would a cross-border filing look like in practice?

Here is an illustration, not a real case. A Pune company sells an ayurvedic pain balm across northern India and has just signed a distributor in Birgunj, with the Indian registration already in hand.

That registration does nothing here. The balm is Class 5, the crowded class for Indian filers, so the first job is a search rather than a filing.

The company appoints a Nepali agent, encloses a certified copy of the Indian certificate under Sec. 21C, and files one application for Class 5. If it later sells a branded soap, that is Class 3 and a second application.

In short

The two systems differ in structure, in term and above all in reach. India can file outward through Madrid and the PCT; Nepal cannot file outward at all, and nothing can be filed inward except a national application.

Plan each country as its own territory, clear the name in both before launch, and keep two sets of renewal dates. Indian businesses have done exactly that here for years, which is why they lead the foreign entries.

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If you are taking a brand across the border in either direction, tell us the name, the goods and the country you start from and we will tell you what the Nepal side needs.