Trademark Registration for Mobile Apps in Nepal

Most mobile apps start in NICE classification Class 9, which covers downloadable software. If your users sign in rather than install, the filing belongs in Class 42. How the app reaches the user decides the class, and each class is a separate application at the Department of Industry.

Key takeaways

• Delivery decides the class. A copy the user installs is Class 9; a service the user signs in to is Class 42.
• WIPO's current list carries computer software applications, downloadable in Class 9 and software as a service in Class 42, under separate basic numbers.
• Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for each category, so one app brand often means three or four filings.
• Messaging and calling are Class 38, an online marketplace is Class 35, and an online social network sits in Class 45.
• The word and the icon are two different marks. A word filing does not reach a device, and a device filing does not reach the word.
• A store listing, a domain and a handle create no right here. Under Sec. 16(1) title comes from registration at the Department.
• Registration runs seven years under Sec. 18D and is renewable under Section 23B, but Sec. 18C cancels a mark unused a year after registration.

Which class does a mobile app actually fall in?

Ask what the customer receives. If they receive a copy of the software on their own device, you are dealing with goods, and goods live in Class 9. If they receive access to something running on your servers, you are dealing with a service.

WIPO's alphabetical list settles the wording. Class 9 carries computer software applications, downloadable under basic number 090717, and the class heading itself covers recorded and downloadable multimedia files and computer software.

That is why a game, a utility or an offline reader is a Class 9 filing: the copy stays on the handset whether or not your servers keep running.

When does an app need Class 42 instead?

When nothing meaningful happens on the phone. A thin client that only draws screens fed by your backend is a way of delivering a service, and Class 42 is where that service belongs.

WIPO lists software as a service [SaaS] at basic number 420220 and providing online non-downloadable computer software at 420300, both in Class 42. The class explanatory note names software as a service and platform as a service directly.

Many apps are honestly both. If you ship an installable app and also run the platform it talks to, you are describing Class 9 and Class 42, and our companion note on whether an app name can be registered at all covers the registrability side of that decision.

Does your app transmit anything between users?

Then look at Class 38, whose heading is simply telecommunications services. WIPO's note for that class covers the transmission of digital files and electronic mail, internet chatrooms and online forums, and video and teleconferencing.

The same note draws a line most founders miss. Class 38 covers the carrying, not the content: a downloadable image file stays in Class 9, and providing business information through a website stays in Class 35.

So a delivery app with an in-app chat probably does not need Class 38, because messaging is incidental. A product whose whole point is that people talk to each other probably does.

What about a marketplace, a wallet or a social app?

Each of those sits somewhere else again. Class 35 covers bringing goods together so customers can view and buy them, including through a website, which is the marketplace layer rather than the software.

Financial services belong in Class 36, and WIPO's Class 38 note sends online banking there expressly. The surprise is Class 45, whose heading now names online social networking services alongside legal and security services.

That is not intuitive from outside, which is why the class finder and the AI classifier are worth a few minutes before you fix a list.

Why can you not put them all on one form?

Because Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 says a separate application is submitted for goods or services placed in different categories. There is no combined filing in Nepal.

The Department applies the class list under Section 18A(1), by a notification in the Nepal Gazette.

Budget for the classes that carry your revenue rather than filing the cheapest one. The class you leave out is usually the one a competitor is free to take.

Do you file the name or the icon?

Both, eventually, because they are different marks. A word filing protects the name in any typeface, which survives every redesign. A device filing protects the artwork you submitted and nothing else.

The icon matters more here than a logo does elsewhere, because it is what a user taps on a crowded home screen. If yours is distinctive, it deserves its own application.

Where a copycat lifts an icon you never filed, the position is weaker than owners expect, as our note on copying an unregistered logo explains.

Do the store listing, the domain and the handle count?

No. A store listing is an agreement with a platform, a domain is a record at a registry, and a handle is a username. None of them is examined by the Department and none appears on the Nepali register.

Sec. 16(1) gives title on registration at the Department, and Section 21B says that even a mark registered abroad is not valid here unless registered in Nepal. That makes Nepal a first-to-file country in practice.

A platform takedown is useful, but it is a private company's brand decision, not a ruling on who owns the name.

How do you file a mobile app mark?

1. Search widely. Run the name, the obvious misspellings and the sound-alikes through our register search and the conflict checker, and repeat it class by class.
2. Write down what you supply. Describe the download, the hosted service and anything you carry between users, in plain words, before you look at class numbers.
3. Map the description to classes. Only then decide how many applications you are filing, using the class-by-class view of published marks to see how crowded each one is.
4. Prepare the papers. Section 17(1) takes the prescribed form with four specimens of the mark, and an agent filing for you needs a notarised power of attorney.
5. File one application per class and keep the applicant details identical across all of them.
6. Answer the examiner properly. An objection is a question with a deadline, not a refusal, and a reasoned reply often settles it.
7. Watch the publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which is where your mark appears and where you would see a rival's.

The whole sequence is set out in our guide to the trademark application process, and the form itself is walked through field by field in filling in the application form.

How long does the wait actually run?

Plan on a long one. An unopposed application commonly takes around 12 to 14 months end to end, with 6 to 8 months only in the smoothest cases. Our own bulletin data suggests filing to publication alone is often longer.

Treat those as planning estimates rather than promises, because the Department publishes no service standard. You can follow what has already been published through our application number lookup.

What happens once the Bulletin carries your mark?

A window opens for anyone who objects. Section 21A(2) allows a complaint within 35 days of publication, while trade mark practice at the Department works to an opposition window of 90 days.

The Act's bare wording and that practice do not read the same way, so plan to the shorter figure and confirm the current period before relying on either. If a conflicting app name appears, our opposition and enforcement team can advise on whether acting is worth it.

Your app launched worldwide. Where does the registration reach?

Only Nepal. An app store makes your product available in dozens of markets on day one, but a Nepali registration is a national right and stops at the border, in both directions.

Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so there is no international registration that lands here by itself, and a foreign owner files nationally through a representative. WIPO publishes the current party lists.

What if you register before you ship?

This is the rule app founders most often miss. Sec. 18C says that where a registered trade mark is not brought into use within one year from registration, the Department shall make the necessary inquiries and cancel the registration.

A team that registers during a funding round and launches eighteen months later is exactly the case that provision describes. The clock runs from registration rather than filing, which at least buys you the examination period.

Keep dated proof of use from the day the certificate arrives: store screenshots, release notes, invoices and advertising. If the launch is going to slip badly, raise it with an advocate rather than hoping.

How long does an app registration last?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D, and a trade mark may be renewed any number of times under Section 23B(3), so a name can run indefinitely while the business does.

Renewal is due within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine before the registration is cancelled. Take the date from the registration certificate and check it against our renewal calculator.

Common mistakes

• Filing Class 9 alone because the product is "an app", while the revenue comes from the hosted platform.
• Calling a browser product downloadable in the goods description, which points the application at the wrong class.
• Adding Class 38 reflexively because the app has a chat box, when messaging is incidental to what you sell.
• Filing the icon and not the word, so a rebrand leaves the registration protecting artwork you no longer use.
• Treating a store takedown as a legal win. It is a platform decision, not a ruling on ownership.
• Registering years before launch and running into the one-year use rule in Section 18C.
• Announcing the name before searching, which is how a good name becomes somebody else's filing.

What does this look like for one app?

A Pokhara team builds a tuition-booking app. Parents install it, tutors are listed on a platform the team hosts, and tutors pay for placement. That is Class 9, Class 42 and Class 35.

They file the word mark in all three on the same day, add the icon a month later once the design settles, and keep the launch quiet until the applications are lodged. This is an illustration, not a real case.

They go live four months after registration, so Section 18C never becomes a question. Had they registered during the pilot and shipped two years later, it would have.

In short

Pick the class from how the software reaches the user, not from what the product is called. Downloads are Class 9, hosted access is Class 42, and carrying messages is Class 38.

Expect several applications rather than one, file before you launch, keep proof of use once registered, and treat the store listing, the domain and the handle as commercial conveniences rather than rights.

People also search for

• Can I trademark my app name in Nepal?
• Why trademark applications are rejected in Nepal
• How to check an application's status at the Department
• Changing a name or address on an application
• Withdrawing a trademark application in Nepal

If you have a name, a launch date and no filing yet, the useful order is search, then classes, then applications. The Department of Industry publishes its current procedure, our clearance service tells you whether a name will survive examination, our filing service handles the applications, and you can contact our team with the shortlist before the store listing goes live.