Trademark Class 44 in Nepal — Medical, Beauty & Agriculture Services (What It Covers, Full List & How to File)

Class 44 is the care class: doctors, salons, vets and growers all sit inside one heading. It is a service class, so the medicine, the shampoo and the seed you sell belong somewhere else, and that boundary is where most filings go wrong.

Key takeaways

• The heading is medical services; veterinary services; hygienic and beauty care for human beings or animals; agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry services.
• Class 44 covers the service. Medicines go to Class 5 and cosmetics to Class 3.
• A medical laboratory doing diagnosis is Class 44; scientific research for medical purposes is Class 42.
• Pharmacy advice and preparation of prescriptions is Class 44, while the shop that sells the box is Class 35.
• A convalescent or rest home is Class 44, but a retirement home is Class 43.
• Our index holds only 385 published Class 44 entries, an IP Sewa count, against 5,005 in Class 3.
• Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires one application for every class.

What does trademark Class 44 cover in Nepal?

The current heading published by WIPO reads: medical services; veterinary services; hygienic and beauty care for human beings or animals; agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry services.

The Department of Industry applies that wording when it reads your application, so a hospital, a hair salon, a veterinary practice and a plant nursery are all filing into the same class.

What ties them together is the act of caring for something living. Our guide to goods against services explains the split this class rests on.

Why does one class hold clinics, salons and nurseries?

Because the classification groups by the kind of work, not by the industry. All four groups treat, tend or beautify a living thing, whether that is a patient, a pet, a lawn or a face.

WIPO's own note puts it plainly: the class is mainly medical care, including alternative medicine, hygienic and beauty care given to human beings and animals, and services in agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry.

Read that way the heading stops looking strange. It is one idea wearing four uniforms, and every exclusion below follows from it.

Which medical services sit in Class 44?

More than most people assume. WIPO names hospital services, telemedicine, dentistry, optometry and mental health services directly in the class.

It also names therapy services such as physiotherapy and speech therapy, blood bank and human tissue bank services, dietary and nutritional advice, and health spa services.

Artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation services are listed too, which surprises clinics that assume a laboratory procedure must belong to a scientific class.

Is a medical laboratory Class 44 or Class 42?

It depends on what the laboratory is for, and this is the boundary the class states most carefully.

Medical clinic services and medical analysis services for diagnostic and treatment purposes provided by medical laboratories are Class 44. WIPO gives x-ray examinations and the taking of blood samples as its own examples.

Scientific research services for medical purposes are excluded and sit in Class 42. So a diagnostic lab and a research lab, in the same building, are in different classes.

Does a pharmacy belong in Class 44?

Partly, and the split is worth getting right. Pharmacy advice and the preparation of prescriptions by pharmacists are named inside Class 44.

The retail sale of medicines to the public is a shop service and generally belongs to Class 35, with the other retail and business services.

A dispensing chemist that also advises patients is therefore looking at two classes, not one. The medicines themselves are goods and sit in Class 5.

Which beauty and hygiene services are included?

Salons, barbering, hairdressing, massage, manicure and facial treatment, plus health spa services, all sit in Class 44 as hygienic and beauty care for human beings.

Body piercing and tattooing are named in the class as well, which places a tattoo studio alongside a dental surgery in classification terms.

The products a salon sells over the counter do not follow. A branded serum or shampoo is goods, and belongs with cosmetics in Class 3.

Where do veterinary and animal services fall?

Veterinary treatment is Class 44, and so is hygienic and beauty care for animals, which is where pet grooming lives.

Animal breeding is inside the class too. Animal training, however, is excluded and goes to Class 41 with the other instruction services.

Boarding for animals is excluded as well, and sits in Class 43 with the accommodation services. A kennel that also treats animals therefore spans two classes.

Which agriculture and plant services does it cover?

Gardening in its widest sense: plant nursery services, landscape design, landscape gardening and lawn care are all named in the class.

Floral art is there too, with flower arranging and wreath making, so a florist offering arrangement services is a Class 44 business rather than only a goods seller.

Aquaculture, horticulture and forestry services complete the group. A dairy or produce brand should read our note on protecting an agriculture brand alongside this.

What is excluded from Class 44?

WIPO publishes the exclusions beside the class, and each names where the service goes instead. They are the most useful twelve lines in the whole entry.

Test every line of your service list against that table, then use the class suggester for anything it does not answer.

Is a care home Class 44 or Class 43?

Both, depending on what is being sold, and the difference is nursing against housing.

Convalescent home and rest home services are named inside Class 44, because the resident is being cared for clinically.

Retirement homes are excluded and sit in Class 43 with temporary accommodation. An operator offering both is describing two services and should say so in the specification.

Where does pest control belong?

In two places, split by purpose. Weed killing and vermin and pest control for agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry are Class 44.

Pest control for anything else, including a house, an office or a warehouse, is excluded and goes to Class 37 with the repair and maintenance services.

A firm that sprays both fields and flats is running two classified services from one van, which is exactly the kind of detail a specification has to record.

How busy is Class 44 in Nepal's published record?

Very quiet. Across the more than 120 Industrial Property Bulletin issues we index, Class 44 holds 385 published entries, which places it 34th of the 45 classes.

Among the eleven service classes it is ninth. Class 35, the retail and advertising class, leads the services with 3,804 entries.

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

Why do so few clinics and salons file for the service?

Partly because the service feels local. A clinic with one address does not always picture a rival opening under the same name in another city.

Partly because a company registration feels like enough. It is not: the Office of the Company Registrar records a business entity, while the Department of Industry registers marks.

The result is a class with room in it. Where Class 33 is a crowded shelf, Class 44 is an under-used one, and an early filer meets fewer earlier marks.

How do you file a Class 44 trademark in Nepal?

Through the Department of Industry, one class at a time, and before the signage goes up rather than after.

1. Write down the services you actually sell. "Dental services" beats "medical services" for a dental practice.
2. Test each line against the exclusions. Teaching, transport, lodging, research and non-farm pest control all leave the class.
3. List the goods separately. Creams, medicines, seeds and equipment each need their own class.
4. Search properly. Run the name through the conflict checker, then read the wording with the goods and services search.
5. File one application per class. Sec. 18A(2) permits nothing else, so count the classes first.
6. Answer the examination. The Department may raise distinctiveness, an earlier mark or your service wording before accepting the application.

What documents does the Department need?

A Nepali applicant supplies the prescribed application, a clean representation of the mark and 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 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. Nepal sits outside the Madrid System, so an international registration does not reach it.

What happens after the mark is accepted?

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

A published trade mark can be opposed within an opposition window of 90 days from publication; rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.

If nothing succeeds, the registration certificate follows. You can read the Bulletin entries yourself through the published trademark search.

How long does a Class 44 registration last?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D, and the clock starts at registration rather than on the day you filed.

The renewal term under Sec. 23B may then be repeated any number of times for a trade mark, so a clinic brand can run indefinitely if the dates are kept.

Section 18C also lets the Department cancel a registration, after inquiry, where the mark has not been brought into use within one year. Our renewal service tracks the dates.

Can one application cover the clinic and its products?

No. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category, so the service and the goods are always separate filings.

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 as the business grows.

Nepal works on a first-to-file basis in practice, so sequence matters. Start with the class that carries the business and read how to choose the right class before committing.

Common mistakes

• Filing only Class 44 for a salon with a product line. The creams need Class 3 of their own.
• Calling a gym a medical service. Health clubs for physical exercise are Class 41.
• Copying the whole heading. Describe the services you really provide, in plain words.
• Treating the company name as protection. A Company Registrar entry is not a trade mark.
• Assuming a licence is a brand right. Health-sector approval creates no trademark at all.
• Waiting until the second branch opens. Under first-to-file, the later application loses.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Lalitpur business called "Panipokhari Care" runs a skin clinic, sells its own face serum, and hires out a small physiotherapy gym.

The clinic treatments are Class 44. The serum is a cosmetic good and belongs in Class 3, so it needs an application of its own.

The gym is the awkward one. Supervised physiotherapy is Class 44 care, while a health club for physical exercise is Class 41 instruction, so the wording has to say which is being offered.

Three descriptions, two or three classes, and each application examined separately. Deciding that on paper first is far cheaper than discovering it at examination.

In short

Class 44 is care: medical, beauty, veterinary and agricultural. It protects the service brand and never the goods used to deliver it.

The value of the entry is its exclusions, because they answer the questions people actually get wrong: research against diagnosis, teaching against treatment, housing against nursing, and farm pest control against every other kind.

The classification is published by WIPO, the Act by the Nepal Law Commission, and every application is decided by the Department of Industry. The wider system is covered in our NICE Classification guide.

If the name matters to your practice, our clearance service weighs the name, the services and the similarity together before you commit.

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Send us your appointment list and we will say how many classes the practice needs and whether the name is clear. Start with trademark registration, or put the brand to us through contact before the signboard is ordered.