TM vs R Symbol: What They Really Mean

TM is short for trademark. It is a notice anyone may print, and Nepal's law does not mention it. The ® symbol claims something far narrower: that the Department of Industry has registered that mark. Printing it early is an offence here.

Key takeaways

• TM stands for trademark. SM stands for service mark. ® stands for registered.
• The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never mentions TM, SM or the ® symbol.
• Sec. 18B says no trade mark may be used as a registered trade mark without registering it at the Department.
• Sec. 19 backs that up with a fine and confiscation of the goods concerned.
• A certificate covers one NICE class, so ® is class-bound, not brand-wide.
• A foreign registration gives you no ® in Nepal (Sec. 21B).
• Bulletin publication is not registration, so it does not yet license the symbol.

What is the full form of TM?

TM is simply an abbreviation of the word trademark, and it is not an acronym for anything longer or a title granted by any office.

You will also meet SM, short for service mark, which some countries use for services rather than goods. Nepal draws no such distinction.

The third symbol, ®, is short for registered. Those three letters are the whole vocabulary, and only the last of them has legal consequences in Nepal.

Does Nepal's law say anything about the TM symbol?

No. Search the official English text of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 published by the Nepal Law Commission and the letters TM appear nowhere as a notice.

The word "symbol" occurs once, at Sec. 2(c), where a trade mark is defined as a "word, symbol, or picture" used to distinguish one trader's goods or services from another's.

That is a description of what a mark can be, not of what you may print beside it, and the Act contains no marking provision at all.

So TM in Nepal is a commercial signal that tells readers you treat the sign as your brand, and it says nothing more than that.

Is the TM symbol useless then?

Not useless, but weak. It costs nothing, warns a casual copier off, and shows that you have presented the sign consistently as a brand rather than as ordinary description.

What it cannot do is hold your place in the queue. Nepal is first-to-file, and years of TM use will not beat somebody else's earlier application.

Our note on what happens when someone copies an unregistered logo sets out how little an unregistered claim really carries.

What exactly does Sec. 18B say about ®?

The whole of Sec. 18B is one sentence: "No trade-mark may be used as a registered trade-mark without registering it at the Department."

Read it carefully, because it never names the ® symbol at all — the Act is older than most of the packaging we now argue about.

What it prohibits is presenting a mark as registered when it is not, and the ® symbol is much the most common way of doing that.

The words "registered trademark" spelled out on a label, a website footer or an invoice fall under the same rule.

What happens if you print ® too early?

Sec. 19 turns a false claim into a punishable offence. It covers using someone else's registered mark, using a cancelled mark, and breaching Sec. 18B.

The penalty is a fine, and the goods and articles connected with the offence may be confiscated on the order of the Department.

Confiscation is the part that hurts a small manufacturer. A printed run of cartons carrying a premature ® is stock you may not keep.

There is a quieter cost too: a competitor who notices has an easy complaint to make while your application is still being examined.

Does registration do anything the symbol does not?

Registration does everything, because Sec. 16(1) says a person acquires title to the trade mark of their business upon registration at the Department.

Sec. 16(2) then bars anyone else from using that mark, or imitating it in a way that deceives the public, without written permission.

The ® symbol is only the visible face of that right. It announces the right to the reader, but it never creates it.

Is publication in the Bulletin enough?

No, and this is the mistake that catches careful people. An accepted mark is published for public information so that anyone with a reason to object may do so.

A published trademark can be opposed within a 90-day opposition window before the certificate issues; act before the DoI's stated last day.

Either way, publication is an invitation to object rather than proof that the Department has registered anything, so wait for the certificate.

Our guide to what a trademark is in Nepal walks through the same sequence in more detail.

Can you check somebody else's ® on our search?

Only partly, and we would rather say so. Our trademark database covers marks published in the Industrial Property Bulletin, more than 71,500 of them.

Publication is not registration, so the database tells you a mark was accepted and advertised. It does not tell you whether a certificate issued or still stands.

For that you need the Department's own register. Our application-number lookup finds a published entry, not a live registration.

Where should the symbol sit on a logo?

Beside the thing that is actually registered. Most Nepali marks combine a word with a device, so the certificate usually covers the pair exactly as filed.

Of the marks published in our bulletins, roughly three in five are word-and-label combinations and about one in three is word only.

If only the wordmark is registered, put the symbol with the word, not with a redrawn logo you never filed.

Which to register first and what makes a logo protectable both matter here.

How do TM, SM and ® compare in Nepal?

Do not stack them as "Brand™®". Pick the one that is true today and change it when the certificate arrives.

Why is ® tied to a single class?

Because Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for goods or services in different categories. One filing buys one class.

Nepal follows the NICE Classification of 45 classes, the international list maintained by WIPO. Classes 1 to 34 are goods; 35 to 45 are services.

So a bakery registered for its cakes has no registered mark for its café service. On the café signboard the symbol would be a false claim.

Work out your real classes with the free NICE class finder before you print anything.

Does a foreign ® work in Nepal?

It does not, and Sec. 21B is blunt about it: title to a trade mark registered in a foreign country is not valid in Nepal unless it is registered here too.

Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so there is no international registration that reaches this market automatically. You need a direct national filing.

A US or EU certificate on your packaging does not license an ® on the shelf in Kathmandu. It licenses it in the country that granted it.

Is there a shortcut for an existing foreign registration?

There is one worth knowing. Sec. 21C allows the Department to register a foreign-registered mark without conducting enquiries if the application encloses the foreign registration certificate.

Sec. 23 charges foreign-registered filings at a higher rate in convertible foreign currency, so weigh the two provisions together.

Confirm the current practice with the Department of Industry before relying on it, and talk to us through our trademark registration service about the route that fits.

Can you lose the right to use ®?

Yes, in two ordinary ways. Sec. 18C lets the Department cancel a registration if the mark is not brought into use within one year of registration.

Sec. 18D then gives a term of seven years, renewable in further seven-year terms, and Sec. 23B requires you to renew the registration within 35 days of expiry.

A late window of six months follows on a fine, and after that the registration is cancelled automatically. The symbol then becomes a false claim on stock you have already printed.

The renewal calculator works out your dates, and our renewal team files them.

What should a company name or domain tell you?

Nothing about trademark status. A company registered at the Office of the Company Registrar has a business name, which is a different record from a trade mark.

A domain registration is a contract with a registrar, and a verified social handle is a platform's own decision. Neither one is registration under Sec. 18.

We compare these records in our guide to company registration against trademark registration.

Where did these symbols come from?

They are inherited, mostly from American and British commercial practice, and they travelled here with packaging rather than with any law.

That is why Nepali labels carry symbols the Nepali statute never defines: the habit arrived long before any rule about it did.

The longer story is in our piece on the history of the trademark symbols.

How do you get from TM to ®?

1. Search first. Check exact, close and sound-alike marks with the conflict checker.
2. Fix your classes. List what you actually sell today and will sell next year.
3. File one application per class. Sec. 18A(2) leaves you no other option.
4. Answer the examiner. Distinctiveness and earlier marks are the usual grounds.
5. Sit out publication. Keep using TM through the objection window.
6. Collect the certificate. Check the exact mark and class printed on it.
7. Change the artwork then. Not before, and only for the classes you hold.

Common mistakes

• Treating the application number as a grant. A receipt is not a certificate.
• Using ® across every product. The certificate covers the class it names and no other.
• Importing a foreign ®. Sec. 21B says the foreign title is not valid here.
• Letting renewal slip. A cancelled registration turns the symbol into a false claim overnight.
• Confusing the record. Company registration, a domain and a verified handle are all different things from a trademark.
• Waiting to file. TM buys no priority in a first-to-file system.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Lalitpur roastery files for its name in Class 30 for coffee and prints TM on every bag.

Eleven months later the certificate arrives and the bags change to ®, which is correct so far.

Then the roastery opens a café and puts the same ® on the menu, but café service sits in Class 43, which no certificate covers.

A rival notices, and the roastery now has a Sec. 18B problem on its menus while the Class 43 application is still pending.

What if a competitor is faking ®?

Gather evidence first — photographs of the packaging, the dates, and the mark exactly as printed — and then check whether any registration exists at all.

Sec. 19 gives the Department the power to fine and confiscate, and Sec. 25 allows compensation to a right holder who has suffered loss.

Our opposition and enforcement team handles complaints of this kind. Legal-effect questions should go to an advocate.

In short

Use TM freely, because it claims nothing the law measures. Use ® only when a certificate for that mark, in that class, is in your hand.

Nepal's Act never names either symbol, yet Sec. 18B still makes the difference between them an offence worth taking seriously.

Free checkers and calculators are at our tools page, and our clearance service tells you whether the mark can register before you print anything.

People also search for

• What is a trademark in Nepal?
• The 45 NICE classes explained
• Nepal's intellectual property law in plain English
• What your trademark says about your business

Only the Department of Industry can tell you whether your mark is registered today. If you are unsure which symbol your packaging may carry, send us the artwork and your filing details.