Trademark Class 33 in Nepal — Alcoholic Beverages (What It Covers & How to File)

Class 33 holds every alcoholic drink except beer, plus the essences and extracts used to make them. It is the second busiest class in Nepal's published trademark record, so the hard part is not choosing it. The hard part is getting a name through it.

Key takeaways

• The official heading is alcoholic beverages, except beers; alcoholic preparations for making beverages.
• Beer, de-alcoholised drinks and non-alcoholic mixers are all Class 32, not Class 33.
• Our index holds 5,753 published Class 33 entries, second only to Class 30, an IP Sewa count.
• WIPO already publishes wording for rice alcohol, rice wine, arrack and sugarcane-based drinks.
• Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires one application for every class.
• A registration is not a production, import or sales licence, which is a separate matter.
• Sec. 18D gives seven years, and the renewal term under Sec. 23B is repeatable without limit for a mark.

What does trademark Class 33 cover in Nepal?

The current heading published by WIPO reads: alcoholic beverages, except beers; alcoholic preparations for making beverages. The Department of Industry applies that list when it reads your goods description.

In everyday trade that means wine, whisky, rum, vodka, gin, cider, liqueurs, bitters and aperitifs, plus rice and cane spirits.

The class covers the bottled goods. A bar, a restaurant and an off-licence shop are services and sit elsewhere, which our guide to goods against services works through.

Why is Class 33 one of Nepal's busiest trademark classes?

Because the drinks trade brands heavily and files often. Across the 122 Industrial Property Bulletin issues we index, Class 33 carries 5,753 published entries and is beaten only by Class 30, the tea, coffee and spices class, on 10,728.

That puts it ahead of cosmetics, ahead of pharmaceuticals and well ahead of Class 32, which holds 3,685. Nepal's published record carries far more alcoholic-drink marks than non-alcoholic ones.

For a new label that is a practical warning. You are filing onto one of the most crowded shelves in the system, so clearance matters more here than almost anywhere else.

What does "alcoholic preparations for making beverages" mean?

It is the second half of the heading and it is often missed. WIPO's note says the class covers alcoholic beverages, essences and extracts, and it lists alcoholic essences, alcoholic extracts and alcoholic fruit extracts by name.

So a producer selling a concentrated alcoholic base to other bottlers still files in Class 33, although nobody drinks the product as sold.

Watch the mirror image. A non-alcoholic essence for making drinks is Class 32, so the alcohol in the preparation decides the side.

Which drinks are excluded from Class 33?

WIPO publishes the exclusions beside the class, and each names where the product goes instead. They explain most misfiled drinks applications.

Run your whole range against that list before you settle a specification, and use the NICE class finder for anything it does not answer.

Where does beer go, and why?

Beer is Class 32, with the bottled water and soft drinks. The system splits drinks by how they are made and sold rather than by alcohol content.

That is why the Class 33 heading has to say "except beers" at all. It is one of very few headings in the system that carves an item out of its own obvious scope.

A distillery that also brews therefore needs two applications, because Sec. 18A(2) allows one class per application and offers no combined filing.

How do you word raksi, aila or rice wine in a Class 33 filing?

Use WIPO's own published terms wherever one fits, because an examiner recognises the phrase from the list you are quoting. That list suits Nepal better than most people expect.

It names rice alcohol, rice wine, arrack, distilled beverages, grain-based distilled alcoholic beverages and sugarcane-based alcoholic beverages, all of which map onto drinks actually made here.

Keep the local name in the mark, but describe the goods in the published wording. The brand can be Nepali while the specification uses language the register knows.

Is chhyang a Class 32 or a Class 33 product?

It depends on your description, and this is the one Nepali drink where the answer is genuinely open. A fermented rice or millet drink can be presented as a rice wine, which is Class 33.

Presented instead as a brewed grain beverage, it starts to look like a beer, and beers are Class 32. WIPO even lists flavoured brewed alcoholic malt beverages except beers, which shows how close the line runs.

Settle the description before you file rather than after an objection, and cover both classes if the range really spans them.

Does a Class 33 registration let you make or sell alcohol?

No. A trademark registration settles who owns the brand, not whether you may produce, import, bottle or retail the product underneath it.

Alcohol is regulated separately in Nepal, and excise, licensing and labelling sit with other authorities. Confirm those with the regulator or an advocate before planning a launch.

The reverse is just as true. Holding a production licence gives you no trademark rights, and it will not stop somebody else registering your name first.

How crowded is Class 33 in Nepal's published record?

Crowded, and concentrated. The five most prolific Class 33 filers in our index are all distilleries, and the largest accounts for 114 published entries alone.

Filings in this class run from 2002 to 2026 in our data, and 4,766 of the 5,753 entries pair a word with a logo rather than claiming a plain word alone.

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

What makes a liquor brand name hard to register?

Three things, and a crowded class sharpens all of them. First, the sheer number of earlier marks already claiming similar words for similar drinks.

Second, geography. Mountain, river and district names are the most reached-for ideas here, so they collide constantly and rarely feel distinctive alone.

Third, description. A word that only announces what is in the bottle struggles, because it separates your goods from nobody. Our note on what can be trademarked sets out the wider limits.

How do you file a Class 33 trademark in Nepal?

Through the Department of Industry, one class at a time, and before the bottles are ordered rather than after.

1. Fix what you are protecting. Decide between the word, the label artwork or both, and keep it consistent across the range.
2. List the real goods. Write "whisky, rum, rice alcohol" rather than reciting the whole heading.
3. Check the exits. Beer, de-alcoholised lines, mixers and bar services all leave Class 33.
4. Search the class properly. Run the name through the conflict checker, then look at the goods wording with the goods and services search.
5. Check who else is filing. The owner search shows what a rival distillery already has published.
6. File one application per class. Sec. 18A(2) permits nothing else, so count your classes first.
7. Answer the examination. The Department may raise distinctiveness, an earlier mark or your goods wording before it accepts the application.

What documents does a Class 33 filing need?

A Nepali applicant supplies the prescribed application, a clean representation of the mark and corporate papers showing who owns it, such as a board resolution.

A foreign applicant files through a Nepal-based representative appointed by power of attorney, because Sec. 21B says a mark registered abroad has no force here unless it is also registered in Nepal.

A Paris Convention priority claim needs the certified earlier filing. Under Sec. 21C the Department may register a foreign-registered mark without enquiries when the foreign certificate is enclosed.

What happens after the Department accepts the mark?

It is published. Section 21A has accepted marks appear in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which is the public notice stage and the moment a rival gets to object.

Practice allows an opposition window of 90 days from publication for a trade mark, although the bare text of the Act says 35 days, so put that difference to an advocate.

If nothing succeeds, the registration certificate follows, and Sec. 16 ties title to registration rather than to how long you have been selling. Read the issue yourself through the published trademark search.

How long does a Class 33 registration last?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D. The clock starts at registration, not on the day you filed, which catches people out.

The renewal term under Sec. 23B may then be repeated any number of times for a trade mark, a wider allowance than the Act gives patents or designs.

Renewal is not automatic, and a lapsed mark on a crowded shelf is an opening for a rival. Our renewal service tracks the dates so the range does not slip.

What must you do after registration?

Use the mark. Section 18C lets the Department cancel a registration, after inquiry, where the mark has not been brought into use within one year of registration.

That rarely troubles a working distillery, but it bites a company that files a defensive name for a line it never launches.

Sec. 18B also prohibits presenting a mark as registered before it is, and Sec. 19 backs that up with a fine and confiscation of the goods, so keep the claim off the label until the certificate exists.

Can one application cover beer and spirits together?

No. Sec. 18A governs classification, and Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for goods in different categories, so a brewery that also distils is filing at least twice.

Sec. 18A(3) softens that: a mark registered in one category may later be registered in another if it falls there, so you can extend rather than file everything at once.

Nepal works on a first-to-file basis in practice, so the order matters. Lead with the class that carries your main product and read how to choose the right class before you commit.

Common mistakes

• Filing Class 33 for beer. Beer is the one alcoholic drink the heading excludes.
• Forgetting the zero-alcohol line. A de-alcoholised version of your own product sits in Class 32.
• Reciting the heading. List the drinks you actually bottle, in the published wording.
• Reaching for a mountain name. It is the most crowded idea in the category.
• Treating a licence as ownership. Regulatory approval creates no brand rights at all.
• Searching only the spelling. Drinks names collide on sound long before they collide on paper.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Nuwakot producer launches "Ghorepani Gold" across a grain spirit, a cane rum, a herbal aperitif and a small-batch beer.

The spirit, the rum and the aperitif are all Class 33 and can share one specification if it is drafted properly. The beer is Class 32 and needs its own application.

Two classes, two filings under Sec. 18A(2). A de-alcoholised version added later would join the beer in Class 32 rather than staying with its own parent spirit.

Before any of it the producer should search both classes, because a conflict found now costs a rename and one found later costs a print run.

What can a class number not settle?

Whether the name is distinctive enough, whether somebody is already using it, and whether the mark would survive an opposition. The class only describes the goods.

Two marks inside one class can be commercially far apart, and a strong mark from a neighbouring class can still block you, so read the goods wording rather than the class number.

For a considered view before you print anything, our clearance service weighs the name, the goods and the similarity together, and the NICE Classification guide covers the system as a whole.

In short

Class 33 is every alcoholic drink except beer, plus the essences and extracts behind them. Beer, alcohol-free versions and mixers belong to Class 32.

It is also the second busiest class in Nepal's published record, so the number is the easy part and clearance is the work. Choose an ownable name, borrow WIPO's wording, count your applications.

The classification is published by WIPO, the Act by the Nepal Law Commission, and every application is decided by the Department of Industry. Brand protection more broadly is covered in intellectual property law in Nepal.

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Send us the full range and we will say how many classes it needs and whether the name can be cleared. Start with trademark registration, or put the label to us through contact before the bottles are ordered.