Trademark Class 40 in Nepal — Manufacturing & Material Treatment (What It Covers, Full List & How to File)

Trademark Class 40 covers treating or making something for someone else, to their order. Tailoring, printing, plating, milling and recycling all sit here. It is the least-used service class in Nepal's published register, and the reason is usually a misfiled application rather than a missing business.

Key takeaways

• The current WIPO heading is treatment of materials; recycling of waste and trash; air purification and treatment of water; printing services; food and drink preservation.
• The real test is whether you work to another person's order and specification.
• Repair, cleaning, rustproofing and plastering go to Class 37, not Class 40.
• Only 136 Class 40 marks appear in our copy of the Industrial Property Bulletin, the smallest of the eleven service classes.
• Nepali owners hold about one in eight of them; German, American, Japanese and French owners hold more.
• Sec. 18A(2) means one application per class, so a maker who also sells needs a goods class too.
• Nepal is first-to-file, so filing early beats using the name early.

What is Trademark Class 40?

It is one of the 45 classes of the NICE classification, the international list the Department of Industry uses to sort what a mark covers.

The current heading, in the thirteenth edition of the list published by WIPO, reads: "Treatment of materials; recycling of waste and trash; air purification and treatment of water; printing services; food and drink preservation."

You will still meet the older, shorter wording, "treatment of materials", on plenty of pages and in some office records. It describes the same class, only less completely.

Our overview of how the 45 NICE classes work explains where the list comes from.

What is the actual test for Class 40?

WIPO's explanatory note is sharper than the heading, and it is the sentence that settles most arguments about this class.

Production or manufacturing counts as a service "only in cases where it is effected for the account of another person to their order and specification".

So the question is not what you do to the material. It is whose material it is, and whose specification you are following.

The note adds the mirror image: if you market the processed object to third parties yourself, that is generally not a Class 40 service at all.

Why is that distinction so easy to miss?

Because two workshops can do identical work and belong in different classes. A dyer who dyes cloth sent in by a garment factory is providing a Class 40 service.

A dyer who buys plain cloth, dyes it and sells the finished cloth is selling goods. The dyeing is ancillary to the sale.

That second business usually needs a goods class rather than Class 40 — a point our note on goods against services in Nepali classification works through.

Which services sit in Class 40?

WIPO's own list for this class runs to a few hundred entries. These are the groups a Nepali business is most likely to recognise.

Search the wording against Nepal's published register with our goods and services search before you settle it.

What does Class 40 exclude?

The explanatory note sends several near-misses elsewhere, and most refusals in this area come from one of them.

• Cleaning — laundering, window cleaning, cleaning building surfaces: Class 37.
• Rustproofing and anti-rust treatment for vehicles: Class 37.
• Custom painting of automobiles: Class 37, even though plating a bumper is Class 40.
• Painting and plastering in construction: Class 37.
• Furniture maintenance or repair, because nothing essential changes: Class 37.
• Decorating food and food sculpting: Class 43, with restaurants.

The bumper is the useful one to remember. Chromium plating changes the metal, and a coat of paint does not.

How many Class 40 marks does Nepal actually have?

Very few. Our copy of the Industrial Property Bulletin holds 136 Class 40 marks out of more than 71,500 published entries in all.

That makes it the smallest of the eleven service classes. Class 45, the next smallest, has more than twice as many, and Class 35 has around 28 times as many.

The 136 are spread across 66 separate bulletin issues between 2006 and 2026, and only 36 of them were filed from 2020 onwards.

These are IP Sewa's figures for published marks, counted from the bulletins we extract. They are not an official Department of Industry statistic.

Who owns the Class 40 marks in Nepal?

Mostly people who are not here. By the country recorded on the entry, Germany leads with 25, then the United States with 19.

Nepal and Japan are level on 16 each, followed by France with 13. Nepali owners hold roughly one in eight of the class.

That is unusual. Tailoring, printing, milling and metal finishing are ordinary Nepali trades, and the register barely reflects them.

You can check any of this yourself with our search by NICE class tool.

What do the Nepali-owned entries cover?

Almost all of them are stitching. The Nepali-language service descriptions in this class read "सिलाई सम्बन्धी कार्य" and "बुटिक कपडा सिलाई" — tailoring work and boutique garment stitching.

So the one Class 40 trade Nepali businesses do protect is the one on every high street. Printing and food processing are almost absent.

Why is the published service wording so unhelpful?

This is the practical catch. Of the 136 entries, 89 record no service description at all — the bulletin prints a cross-reference to the filing papers instead of words.

Only 46 describe the service, and several of those merely repeat "treatment of materials".

The consequence for a clearance search is direct: in Class 40 you cannot filter by what a mark covers, because two entries in three do not say.

Search by name and by owner instead, using the trademark database, and read the source crop for anything close.

Does that matter for your own application?

It matters a great deal. A vague specification is easier for the office to accept and much weaker when you need to rely on it.

Write the services you genuinely perform, in the WIPO list's own vocabulary where it fits. "Custom tailoring" and "cloth dyeing" beat "manufacturing services".

Our AI class classifier gives a first opinion, and our clearance service writes the specification properly.

What does a strong Class 40 specification look like?

Short, concrete and drawn from the official vocabulary. Compare the two columns below before you write your own.

List only what you really do. A service you have never performed adds nothing and invites a non-use challenge later.

How do you file a Class 40 mark in Nepal?

1. Clear the name. Run it through the conflict checker for close and sound-alike marks.
2. Fix the class. Apply the four questions above before you write anything.
3. List the services. Use plain, specific wording drawn from the WIPO entries.
4. File one application. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each class.
5. Answer the examiner. Distinctiveness and earlier marks are the usual grounds.
6. Watch publication. The mark is advertised in the Bulletin, and a 90-day opposition window follows in DoI practice.
7. Collect the registration certificate. Then diarise renewal.

What documents does the DoI expect?

The application form, a clear specimen of the mark, the applicant's details, and a service list written for Class 40.

A company applicant usually supplies its corporate papers, and an agent filing on your behalf needs a power of attorney.

A foreign applicant files directly here through a local representative. Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so no international registration reaches this market on its own.

Our IP registration checklist lists the paperwork for each right.

What law governs the class?

The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965, published by the Nepal Law Commission, is the statute. Sec. 18 is the registration provision.

Sec. 18A(1) lets the government classify goods and services by notification, and Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category.

Sec. 18D gives a term of seven years, and Sec. 23B sets the renewal term with a window of 35 days after expiry and a late period of six months.

Check current practice with the Department of Industry, since classification practice moves faster than the statute.

How long does it take?

For an unopposed trademark, plan on roughly 12 to 14 months end to end. Only the smoothest straightforward cases finish in about 6 to 8 months.

Treat that as a typical figure rather than a promise. Our own bulletin data puts the gap between filing and publication alone at 15 to 18 months for many recent marks.

Nothing about Class 40 makes it faster or slower than any other class.

Common mistakes

• Filing repair work as Class 40. Cleaning, rustproofing and maintenance belong in Class 37.
• Filing the product instead of the service. A printed book is Class 16; printing it for a client is Class 40.
• Writing "manufacturing services". It tells the examiner nothing and protects almost nothing.
• Forgetting the goods side. A tailor who also sells shirts needs Class 25 as well.
• Assuming one filing covers the brand. It covers one class, and nothing else.
• Waiting to file. First-to-file does not reward the business that started earliest.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Bhaktapur workshop powder-coats steel window frames sent in by builders, and also sells its own finished grilles.

The coating work is Class 40, because the frames belong to the builder and the specification is theirs.

The grilles are goods the workshop makes and sells under its own name, so they need a metal goods class instead.

One brand, two filings. Filing only the first would leave the product line unprotected, and filing only the second would leave the coating service open.

Is Class 40 worth registering at all?

If contracts and invoices carry your name, yes. Service brands are copied as readily as product brands, and a registration is what lets you object.

The thin register is an argument for filing rather than against it. There is far less to collide with in Class 40 than in Class 35.

See our brand protection checklist for the order to do things in, and our renewal team keeps the dates.

In short

Class 40 is for treating or making things to another person's order. If the material is yours and the sale is yours, you are in a goods class.

Nepal's register holds only 136 of these marks, most of them foreign-owned and most of them describing nothing. A clear specification is worth real effort here.

Start with the free NICE class finder, then talk to our filing team about the classes your business actually needs.

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Classification arguments are cheaper to settle before filing than after a refusal. If you are not sure which side of the line your workshop falls on, describe the work to us.