The "DoI Gazette archive" usually means the Department of Industry's Industrial Property Bulletin: 123 issues of published trademarks since January 2006. To research it well, know what it holds, where patents appear instead (the Nepal Gazette), how later issues correct earlier ones, and what it can never prove.
Key takeaways
- The DoI bulletin archive runs from Volume 1, Number 1 (22 January 2006) to Volume 20, Number 8 (16 October 2026).
- It carries trademarks. Registered patents are published in the Nepal Gazette under Sec. 7A.
- Later issues correct earlier ones: we count 624 corrections across 58 issues.
- A Bulletin entry is published, not registered. Only the DoI can confirm status.
- A published trademark can be opposed within 90 days of its publication.
- Filings that are not yet published, and registrations from before 2006, are not in the archive.
What is the DoI Gazette archive?
People use the phrase for two different publications. The first is the Industrial Property Bulletin (औद्योगिक सम्पत्ति बुलेटिन), which the Department of Industry (DoI) prints and lists on its own website. The second is the Nepal Gazette (नेपाल राजपत्र), the government's official journal, published by the Department of Printing.
The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never uses the word "Bulletin". It names the Nepal Gazette instead, for registered patents, the classification of goods and services, and fee changes. The Bulletin is how the DoI gives public notice of trademarks it has accepted.
So a research question starts with one choice: which publication answers it? For what an entry contains and how to read one, see our guide to the Industrial Property Bulletin. This page covers how to research the record as a whole.
How far back does the Bulletin archive go?
The first issue, Volume 1, Number 1, is dated 22 January 2006 (2062-10-09 BS). The newest, Volume 20, Number 8, came out on 16 October 2026 (2083-06-30 BS). The DoI's Bulletin page lists 123 issues, and IP Sewa holds all 123.
The archive is younger than the register. Entries published since 2006 carry filing dates back to 1994, and the lowest application number we hold is 21,261. Marks registered before the Bulletin began were never printed in it.
How many issues appear each year?
There is no fixed schedule. The DoI has published between three and nine issues a year, with a median of 55 days between issues. Here is IP Sewa's count of the published record, grouped by period and ordered by publication date.
| Period | Issues | Published marks | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006–2010 | 31 | 7,834 | Nine issues in 2006, the most of any year. |
| 2011–2015 | 24 | 14,166 | Three issues in 2014; three issues are scans only. |
| 2016–2020 | 21 | 15,841 | The longest gap, 196 days, fell in 2020. |
| 2021–2025 | 39 | 27,689 | 2023 was the busiest year, with 7,817 marks. |
| 2026 to 16 October | 8 | 6,312 | Volume 20, Numbers 1 to 8. |
| All issues | 123 | 71,842 | From 19,972 owners and 100 countries. |
Issue size varies just as much. The smallest issue in our archive has 72 entries, the median 581, and the largest, Volume 12, Number 2 (4 July 2018), has 1,693.
To keep up, watch for the DoI's notice that a new issue has been published (औद्योगिक सम्पत्ति बुलेटिन प्रकाशन गरिएको सूचना). It appears among the notices on the DoI website, and the issue itself is added to the Bulletin list.
Why do volume numbers not match calendar years?
A volume usually covers one year, but not always. Volume 2 ran from February 2007 to July 2008, and Volume 3 from August 2008 to November 2009. From Volume 4 onwards, each volume sits inside one calendar year.
So never cite a volume on its own. Write the volume, the number and the publication date together. Dates on the cover use the Bikram Sambat calendar, so convert them with care before you count any deadline.
Which Bulletin issues are hardest to search?
Three issues are pure scans with no text layer: Volume 5, Number 1 (February 2011), Volume 6, Number 3 (May 2012) and Volume 7, Number 2 (June 2013). Searching their PDFs for a word finds nothing, however many marks they hold. If you work from the PDFs, read those three issues page by page.
Older issues also mix English with Nepali, and some print Nepali goods lists in a legacy font that copies out as garbled text. A word search over that text fails silently.
IP Sewa read the three scans with OCR and recovered most of the garbled goods lists, so our trademark search reaches entries a PDF search misses.
Where are patents published, if not in the Bulletin?
In the Nepal Gazette. Sec. 7A(1) of the Act says registered patents "shall be published by the Department in the Nepal Gazette", except those kept secret in the national interest. Publication follows registration on the Act's wording.
The full file stays with the DoI. Under Sec. 7A(2), anyone may see or copy the patent's particulars and drawings on paying the DoI's fee. Sec. 7A(3) then gives 35 days to object, counted from that viewing or copying.
Expect very few entries. Nepal's Economic Survey 2082/83 counts only 90 patents registered at the DoI up to Falgun 2082, and none from abroad since fiscal year 2074/75. The DoI's own Nepal Gazette notices page lists 13 items, none of them a patent. For method, see researching existing patents.
Are industrial designs in the archive?
Not that we have found. When IP Sewa scanned 121 issues for patent and design sections, none had one. The Economic Survey counts 320 designs registered up to Falgun 2082, a small figure next to 70,970 trademarks.
Sec. 21A(1) tells the DoI to publish registered designs, with any renewal or cancellation, but it names no publication. For a design question, ask the DoI directly, or let our industrial design team request the record.
What are the Bulletin's correction (bhul-sudhar) notices?
When the DoI prints an entry wrongly, it puts it right in a later issue, under a heading such as भुल-सुधार (correction) or संशोधन (amendment). IP Sewa has parsed 624 corrections across 58 issues. The first appears in Volume 11, Number 2 (30 March 2017).
Corrections are now routine: every issue published in 2024, 2025 and 2026 carries some. Most (473) reprint an entry. The commonest reasons are a logo left out (198), the applicant's name (167) and the mark name (106).
They can arrive late. Where we could match a notice to its original entry (621 of them), the median gap was about four months, and 108 came more than a year later.
The corrected version is the one to compare against. With full search access on IP Sewa, a mark's detail view shows both the entry as first printed and the correction notice.
How do you research a mark across the whole archive?
Treat it like any records search: define the question, search broadly, then go back to the source. This routine works for a new brand name, a competitor or your own filing.
- Search every issue at once. Use the published-marks search with the name, close spellings and any Nepali-script form.
- Widen to similar names. The conflict checker catches sound-alikes an exact search misses.
- List the owner's marks. The owner search shows everything one company has published.
- Go to the source issue. Open the PDF on the DoI site and note the volume, number, date, page and application number.
- Check later issues. Look for a correction notice that reprints or changes the entry.
- Work out the deadline. If the entry is recent, count the opposition window from its publication date.
- Confirm status with the DoI. Only the Department can say whether the mark was registered, renewed or cancelled.
How do you count an opposition deadline from an issue?
A published trademark can be opposed within 90 days of its publication in the Bulletin. Count the publication day as day one: for the issue of 16 October 2026, that gives 13 January 2027. Rely on the deadline the DoI states and act before the last day.
Count from the issue's date, never from the filing date or the day you found the PDF. If a new entry conflicts with your brand, our opposition team can prepare the case inside the opposition period.
What does the archive show about timing?
Each entry prints its filing date, so the archive measures how long marks waited to be published. Across the 12 latest issues (9,652 marks), the median gap from filing to publication was about 3.5 months, and 64% were published within six months.
The tail is long: about one mark in six took over two years. So a missing filing is not proof it was refused.
Publication is only one stage. End to end, an unopposed trademark typically takes about 12–14 months from filing to certificate, and 6–8 months only in the smoothest cases; both are estimates. Our guide on how long trademark registration takes covers the full timeline.
The printed filing date also shows who filed first. The first-to-file principle generally applies in Nepal, so between two similar marks the earlier complete application usually wins. Note both dates for every close match you find.
What can the archive not tell you?
It is a record of publication, not of rights. It cannot show whether a published mark was later registered, refused, withdrawn, renewed or cancelled. It cannot show applications still being examined, and it holds nothing registered before 2006.
Age matters too. A registration lasts seven years from the date of registration and is renewable any number of times, so an entry printed in 2008 says nothing about whether the mark is alive today.
Official totals show the difference. The Economic Survey counts 70,970 trademarks registered at the DoI up to Falgun 2082 (mid-March 2026), while our archive holds 71,500+ published marks. Ours includes marks never registered; theirs includes registrations from before 2006.
The trademark register, which the DoI keeps under Sec. 22, is the record of title. For a written view of what your search found, our trademark search and clearance team can help.
How do you cite a Bulletin entry correctly?
In a letter, an opposition or a due-diligence report, give the volume, the number, the publication date in both calendars, the page and the application number. Add the mark name and owner as printed, spelling and all, and the class. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each class of the NICE classification, which WIPO publishes.
Keep a copy of the issue PDF with your file, and note any later correction. For a known filing, the application-number lookup finds the entry and its issue in one step.
Common mistakes when researching the DoI record
- Calling a published mark registered. Publication opens the opposition window; the certificate comes later.
- Looking for patents in the Bulletin. Registered patents go to the Nepal Gazette.
- Stopping at the first printing. A later correction may change the name, owner or logo.
- Searching a scanned PDF for text. Three issues have no text layer at all.
- Citing a volume without a date. Volumes 2 and 3 each span more than a year.
- Reading absence as clearance. Unpublished filings and pre-2006 registrations are not in the archive.
What happens when a researcher stops at the first printing?
Here is an illustration, not a real case. A Biratnagar snack maker plans to sell as "Koshi Crunch". Its researcher finds an older entry, "Koshi Crisp", printed as a word mark with no logo, and decides the risk is low.
Two issues later, a correction notice reprints that entry with its logo: a river device much like the one the snack maker designed. Checking later issues would have caught it before the packaging was printed.
In short: how should you research the DoI's published record?
Start with the Bulletin for trademarks and the Nepal Gazette for patents. Search the whole archive, then return to the source issue and every later correction. Treat what you find as published, and ask the DoI to confirm status.
Before you file, make sure the name is clear and the application is complete. Our trademark registration service takes it from search to certificate.
People also search for
- How to read an IP Bulletin entry
- How do I check if a trademark is registered?
- How to register a trademark in Nepal
- Prior art search for patents
Found an entry you need to act on? Contact IP Sewa and we will look at the record with you.
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