Trademark Class 25 in Nepal — Clothing & Footwear (What It Covers & How to File)

Class 25 is clothing, footwear and headwear. It is easy to get into and easy to stop at, and in Nepal's published record most owners do stop there. The work is deciding what the class leaves out.

Key takeaways

• The current heading is clothing, footwear, headwear — headwear, not the older "headgear".
• Our index holds 2,689 published Class 25 entries across 1,605 applicants, an IP Sewa count.
• Only 378 of those applicants hold a mark in any other class. Three in four are single-class.
• The class they most often add is not fabric. It is Class 18 — bags and leather goods.
• Sports clothing stays in Class 25; equipment essential to the sport goes to Class 28.
• Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires one application per category.
• Sec. 18D gives seven years from registration, and the renewal term under Sec. 23B repeats.

What does trademark Class 25 cover in Nepal?

Finished things people wear. The heading WIPO currently publishes is three words long: clothing, footwear, headwear.

The explanatory note narrows it usefully. Class 25 is mainly clothing, footwear and headwear for human beings, which is why a coat for a dog is not in it.

Nepal applies that list because Sec. 18A(1) of the Act lets the government adopt a classification by notification in the Nepal Gazette.

Is the class "headwear" or "headgear"?

Headwear. The older wording "headgear" survives in a great many Nepali filing checklists and in older copies of the class list, including our own reference table.

Nothing turns on it, because both describe the same goods. It tells you only which edition a document was copied from.

If a form still says headgear, check every other figure on it against the current WIPO list.

How big is Class 25 in Nepal's published record?

Across the more than 120 Industrial Property Bulletin issues we index, Class 25 carries 2,689 published entries held by 1,605 applicants, with filings running from 1999 to 2026.

That is a middle-sized class here, well behind food and cosmetics. Nepal's garment trade is large, but much of it sews for other people's labels, and a contract manufacturer has no brand to register.

These are IP Sewa counts of published bulletin entries, not official Department of Industry statistics, and they show no registration status. Browse the shelf with marks by class.

Why do three in four Class 25 owners stop at one class?

Of the 1,605 applicants holding a Class 25 mark in our index, only 378 hold a mark in any other class. The rest filed once and stopped.

Some of that is correct. A label that only makes shirts needs one class, and coverage you do not use is not protection.

The rest is the gap this page is about. A clothing business grows sideways into bags, a shop or eyewear, and each is somebody else's class until you file it.

Which classes do Nepali clothing brands actually add?

Not fabric, which is the answer most filing guides give. Counting the 378 multi-class applicants in our index, the companion classes rank in an order worth seeing.

Class 18 leads because accessories are the natural second product, and leather carries a brand as visibly as a shirt does.

Class 35 is second, which is the shop. Class 9 in third place is largely eyewear. Check what a competitor has published with the owner search.

Where is the line with Class 24?

Whether the item has been made up. Class 24 is textiles and textile goods — cloth by the metre, bed linen, curtains, towels — while Class 25 begins once the cloth has become a garment.

Pashmina shows both sides at once. A shawl is Class 25, and WIPO lists shawls and scarves by name. The unsewn woven length sold as cloth is Class 24.

The finest line in the class sits here: a paper handkerchief is Class 16, a textile one is Class 24, and a pocket square is Class 25.

Are buttons and zips Class 25?

No, and this catches makers who supply the garment trade rather than the public. Haberdashery and fastenings are Class 26 — clasps, buckles, zippers, ribbons, hatbands, hat and shoe trimmings.

Parts of the garment itself do stay in Class 25. WIPO names cuffs, pockets, ready-made linings, heels and heelpieces, cap peaks and hat frames.

So a factory making cap peaks files in Class 25, while the factory next door making the hatband files in Class 26. Test each product line separately with the NICE class finder.

Are sports clothes Class 25 or Class 28?

Clothes are Class 25; equipment is Class 28. The test is not whether an athlete wears the thing, but whether it is gear essential to the practice of the sport.

Class 25 explicitly includes ski gloves, sports singlets, cyclists' clothing, martial arts uniforms, football shoes, gymnastic shoes and ski boots.

Class 28 takes baseball gloves, boxing gloves and ice skates. For Nepal's trekking-wear makers the good news is that mountaineering gloves are a published Class 25 indication.

Is protective or medical clothing Class 25?

Usually not, and the split is unusually precise. Protective helmets and clothing for protection against fire are Class 9; clothing especially for operating rooms and orthopaedic footwear are Class 10.

But the class list also carries "medical uniforms, other than for operating rooms" as a Class 25 item. A scrubs brand is in Class 25; a surgical-gown maker is not.

What else leaves Class 25?

WIPO publishes the exclusions beside the class and names the destination each time. They account for most misfiled clothing applications.

Read the range against that list before settling a specification, and check the rest with the goods and services search.

How should a Nepali label word its goods?

Name what you actually sell, in wording the register already recognises. "Shirts, jackets, shawls, caps and shoes" beats both "garments" and the whole heading copied out.

The published list covers Nepali dress better than people expect. It names saris, shawls, scarves, headscarves, knitwear, jerseys, belts, sandals, hats and shirts, all as individual indications.

Keep the local name for the mark and borrow the published phrase for the goods. That combination survives examination without narrowing what you sell.

How do you file a Class 25 trademark in Nepal?

At the Department of Industry, one class at a time, and before the swing tickets are printed rather than after.

1. Clear the name first. Run it through the conflict checker, and test how it sounds as well as how it is spelt.
2. Map the whole business. List every product line, then place each one, because bags and a shop are separate categories.
3. Write the goods list. Name the garments, footwear and headwear you sell, in published wording.
4. Count the applications. Sec. 18A(2) allows one category each, so a label with a store counts at least two.
5. File the bundle. Sec. 17 asks for the prescribed form together with four specimens of the mark.
6. Answer examination. The Department may raise distinctiveness, an earlier mark or the goods wording.
7. Follow it through. Publication and the opposition window come before the registration certificate.

What documents does a Class 25 filing need?

A Nepali applicant supplies the prescribed application form, four specimens, the permit or certificate for the business, and a company's internal approval where one applies.

Where somebody files on your behalf, the Department's form asks for a power of attorney, and Sec. 20 makes that representative's acts count as your own.

A foreign fashion house files nationally through a representative, because Sec. 21B says a mark registered abroad is not valid here until it is registered here as well. Nepal is not in the Madrid System.

What happens after the Department accepts the mark?

It is published. Sec. 21A has registered designs and trade marks published for the information of the public, which is the moment a rival gets a chance to object.

A published trade mark can be opposed within 90 days of its publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin. Rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.

The wait is real. An unopposed trademark in Nepal typically runs about 12 to 14 months from filing to certificate, with 6 to 8 months only at the smoothest end, and our own bulletin records put the median filing-to-publication gap at about 3.5 months, though about one mark in six waits more than two years.

You can read the issues as they appear through the published trademark search, which shows published marks rather than registration status.

How long does it last, and how is it renewed?

Seven years under Sec. 18D, running from the date of registration rather than the date you filed. In a crowded class that distinction decides who is earlier.

The renewal term under Sec. 23B is repeatable. Renewal falls due within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine, after which the registration is cancelled.

Sec. 18C adds a use requirement: a mark not brought into use within one year of registration can be cancelled after inquiry. Our renewal service tracks the dates.

Common mistakes

• Filing the fabric instead of the garment. Cloth by the metre is Class 24.
• Stopping at one class because the first product is one class. Most labels grow into bags first.
• Writing "garments and accessories". Accessories are spread across four other classes.
• Assuming sportswear means Class 28. Clothing stays in 25; only the equipment leaves.
• Treating a company name as a brand right. Registering at the Company Registrar is not a trade mark.
• Filing after the launch. Nepal is first-to-file, and use does not beat a filing.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Kathmandu label puts one name on hoodies and caps, a line of leather backpacks, a pair of branded sunglasses and a shop in Thamel.

The hoodies and caps are Class 25 and share one application. The backpacks are Class 18, the sunglasses Class 9, and the shop is a Class 35 retail service.

Four applications for one name, then. Filing only the first leaves three doors open, and in this register the backpack door is the one most often walked through.

What can a class number not settle?

Whether the name is distinctive, whether somebody already holds something close to it, and whether the mark would survive an opposition. The class only describes the goods.

Fashion widens that gap, because names here cluster around the same few words and the same few places.

For a considered view before the print run, our clearance service weighs the name, the goods and the similarity together, and protecting a clothing brand covers the sector.

In short

Class 25 is clothing, footwear and headwear for people. Fabric is 24, fastenings are 26, bags are 18, sports equipment is 28, and safety or surgical wear is 9 or 10.

It holds 2,689 published entries in our index, and three in four of its owners never file a second class. Deciding whether you are one of them is the real work.

The classification is published by WIPO, the Act by the Nepal Law Commission, and each application is decided by the Department of Industry. The classification itself is explained in our NICE Classification guide, and the goods-or-services split in goods against services.

People also search for

• How do you choose the right trademark class?
• What is a trademark in Nepal?
• What can be trademarked in Nepal
• Trademark Class 3: cosmetics and cleaning
• Trademark Class 9: electronics and eyewear

Send us the whole range, from the hoodie to the shop sign, and we will say how many classes it needs and whether the name clears. Start with trademark registration, or put the label in front of us through contact before the labels are printed.