Trademark Class 35 in Nepal — Advertising, Retail & Business Services (What It Covers & How to File)

Class 35 is advertising, business management and office functions, and it is where retail lives. It is also the class Nepali businesses claim most often and misread most often, because of one sentence WIPO prints in the explanatory note.

Key takeaways

• The heading is advertising; business management, organization and administration; office functions.
• WIPO's note says plainly that the sale of goods is not considered to be a service.
• What is a service is bringing goods together for the benefit of others so customers can view and buy them.
• Our index holds 3,804 published Class 35 entries — the busiest service class by far, an IP Sewa count.
• It is also the most paired class: 1,246 of its 2,932 applicants hold a mark somewhere else too.
• Accounting, auditing and tax preparation are Class 35; financial advice is Class 36.
• Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires one application per category.

What does trademark Class 35 cover in Nepal?

The heading WIPO currently publishes is short: advertising; business management, organization and administration; office functions.

The explanatory note fills it out. Class 35 is mainly services involving the management, operation, organization and administration of a commercial enterprise, plus advertising, marketing and promotional work.

It then names retail directly: the bringing together of a variety of goods for the benefit of others, so customers can conveniently view and purchase them, whether through shops, wholesale outlets, catalogues, vending machines or websites.

Is selling your own goods a Class 35 service?

No, and this is the sentence that decides the class. WIPO writes it into the note without qualification: for the purposes of classification, the sale of goods is not considered to be a service.

So a manufacturer who sells what it makes is not, by that fact, providing a Class 35 service. The product needs its goods class, and the goods class is what protects the product.

Class 35 becomes right when there is a separate retail or promotional activity to protect — a shop, a platform, an agency — with its own name in front of customers.

What does "for the benefit of others" mean?

It means the goods gathered are somebody else's, at least in part. A supermarket stocking two hundred brands is plainly doing it; so is a marketplace app listing other sellers.

A single-brand outlet selling only its own production is the weaker case, because nothing is brought together for anyone. The honest answer is often two filings.

Our note on goods against services works that distinction through with more examples.

How big is Class 35 in Nepal's published record?

Across the more than 120 Industrial Property Bulletin issues we index, Class 35 carries 3,804 published entries held by 2,932 applicants, with filings running from 2004 to 2026.

It is the busiest service class in the country by a wide margin — about two and a half times Class 43, the next one down, and roughly three in every ten service-class entries we hold.

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

Why is Class 35 the class most often paired with another?

Because it describes how a business reaches customers, not what it makes, and almost every business does both.

Of the 2,932 Class 35 applicants in our index, 1,246 hold a mark in another class as well — about two in five. In Class 25 that figure is under one in four, and in Class 3 it is one in five.

The companions say what those businesses are: Class 9 leads on 310 applicants, then Class 41 on 290, Class 42 on 289, Class 36 on 224 and Class 38 on 179. Check a rival's spread with the owner search.

Is there a plain "retail services" you can claim?

Not in the published list, which is a practical surprise. The alphabetical indications name retail only for particular things.

They cover retail services for pharmaceutical, veterinary and sanitary preparations and medical supplies, for works of art provided by art galleries, and relating to bakery products, plus online retail for digital music, movies, ring tones and virtual clothing.

So a Nepali shop should say what it retails. "Retail services in relation to groceries and packaged food" is a specification; "retail services" on its own is an invitation to be asked.

Where is the line with Class 36?

Keeping the books is Class 35; advising on the money is Class 36. The split is finer than most accountancy firms assume.

Class 35 expressly includes book-keeping, drawing up statements of accounts, business and financial auditing, business appraisals, and tax preparation and filing services.

Class 36 takes financial analysis, financial management, financial sponsorship, real estate management and stock brokerage — and it holds "financial advice relating to tax", one indication away from the tax preparation in Class 35.

Where is the line with Class 42?

Whether the work is commercial or technical, and the list makes the point with an almost identical pair.

"Business consultancy services for digital transformation" is Class 35. "Technological consultancy services for digital transformation" is Class 42. One word decides it.

The same edge catches agencies: promotional work is Class 35, but graphic design of promotional materials is Class 42, and energy auditing sits there too despite the word audit.

Do influencer marketing and online marketplaces fit Class 35?

Yes, and the list has caught up faster here than people expect. "Influencer marketing" and "promotion of goods through influencers" are both published Class 35 indications.

So is "provision of an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of goods and services", which is the right wording for a Nepali platform rather than a home-made description.

Price comparison services and search engine optimization for sales promotion are in the class too. Test your own phrasing against the register with the goods and services search.

What else leaves Class 35?

WIPO publishes the exclusions beside the class and names where each thing goes instead. Most of the misfiled Nepali service applications we see are on this list.

Commercial administration of somebody else's licensing does stay in Class 35, a line worth reading twice.

Is a company registration the same as a Class 35 mark?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding behind a Nepali Class 35 filing. Registering at the Company Registrar creates a legal person with a name.

A trade mark is a different right, granted by the Department of Industry over a sign used for particular goods or services. One does not imply the other.

Our guide to protecting a business name sets out what each registration actually gives you.

How should a Nepali business word its services?

Describe the activity and, for retail, the goods it concerns. "Advertising; online retail services in relation to clothing and footwear" tells the examiner something.

Avoid claiming the whole heading. Class 35 is broad enough that a heading-wide claim invites objection from anyone in any adjacent trade.

Where the business also makes a product, write the service list for the service and file the goods separately. The NICE class finder is a fast first check.

How do you file a Class 35 trademark in Nepal?

At the Department of Industry, one class at a time, and before the shopfront is painted.

1. Clear the name. Run it through the conflict checker across both the service and the goods side.
2. Separate the activities. List what you do for others and what you sell yourself, because only the first is a service.
3. Write the service list. Name the activities, and for retail name the goods retailed.
4. Count the applications. Sec. 18A(2) allows one category each, so a shop with an own-label range counts 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 wording of the services.
7. Follow it through. Publication and the opposition window come before the registration certificate.

Where an agent files for you, the Department's form asks for a power of attorney, and Sec. 20 makes that representative's acts count as your own. A foreign group files nationally, because Sec. 21B says a mark registered abroad is not valid here until registered here as well.

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 competitor can 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.

Follow the issues 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 from filing.

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 a year of registration can be cancelled after inquiry. Our renewal service keeps the dates.

Common mistakes

• Filing Class 35 for your own product. Selling your goods is not a service; the product needs its class.
• Writing "retail services" alone. The published list always names the goods retailed.
• Assuming an audit is an audit. Business auditing is 35, energy auditing is 42.
• Letting the design work in. Graphic design of promotional material is Class 42.
• Treating the company name as the brand right. They are separate registrations.
• Filing after launch. Nepal is first-to-file, and this class is the busiest on the service side.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Kathmandu company runs an online grocery marketplace for other sellers, sells its own brand of lentils on it, buys social advertising, and builds the app in-house.

The marketplace is Class 35, and the published wording for it exists. The advertising it buys is not a service it supplies, so it changes nothing.

The own-brand lentils need a goods class of their own. If the company later sells its platform software to other retailers, that is Class 42, not an extension of the Class 35 filing.

In short

Class 35 is advertising, business administration and the act of bringing other people's goods together for customers. Selling your own product is not in it.

It is Nepal's busiest service class, with 3,804 published entries in our index, and the class most likely to be one half of a pair. Decide what you do for others before you write the list.

The classification is published by WIPO, the Act by the Nepal Law Commission, and every application is decided by the Department of Industry. For a view before the launch, our clearance service weighs the name and the services together.

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Tell us what the business does for others and what it sells itself, and we will say how many classes that is. Start with trademark registration, or send the shop and product names through contact before the signage goes up.