Trademark Registration for SaaS Companies in Nepal

File the brand at the Department of Industry, and file it in Class 42. A subscription customer receives access, not a copy, so a SaaS product is a service. Every further class is a further application under Sec. 18A(2), which is the real cost of a multi-class plan.

Key takeaways

• WIPO's list carries software as a service at basic number 420220 in Class 42, and the class note names SaaS and platform as a service directly.
• Class 9 is for a copy the customer installs. If nobody installs anything, Class 9 is the wrong home for the core product.
• Sec. 18A(2) means each category is a separate application, a separate examination, a separate certificate and a separate renewal date.
• Class 35 and Class 42 both carry a digital transformation consultancy entry, one word apart, and picking the wrong one narrows what you own.
• Sec. 21D lets the registered owner permit another person to use the mark in writing, which is how resellers and white-label partners are handled.
• Sec. 18C cancels a mark not brought into use within a year of registration, so keep dated proof from launch onwards.
• A registration runs seven years under Sec. 18D and is renewable under Section 23B(3) any number of times.

Why is SaaS Class 42 rather than Class 9?

Because of what the customer walks away with. Class 9 is a goods class covering, among other things, computer software applications, downloadable. A download is a thing the customer keeps.

A subscription is not. The customer gets a login, and the software stays on your infrastructure, which is why WIPO puts software as a service [SaaS] and providing online non-downloadable computer software in Class 42.

The class heading also covers the design and development of computer software, so development work sold alongside the subscription sits in the same place.

When does a SaaS company still need Class 9?

When something really is installed. A desktop agent that syncs files, a mobile companion app, an on-premise build for a bank, or a device you ship with the service are all copies in the customer's hands.

The test is not whether the word "app" appears in your marketing, but whether a customer ends up holding software you supplied.

If both are true, you are describing two categories and therefore two applications. Our note on filing for software companies sets out the wider picture for a mixed product line.

What does Class 35 actually buy a SaaS company?

Less than founders expect, and it is easy to claim it by accident. Class 35 covers advertising, business management and office functions, plus bringing goods together so that customers can view and buy them.

That fits a marketplace taking commission on other people's goods. It does not fit "we sell business software", because your own product is not a service you provide to others.

The trap is a pair of entries one word apart: business consultancy services for digital transformation sits in Class 35 at basic number 350166, and technological consultancy services for digital transformation sits in Class 42 at 420273.

If you advise on process and change management, the first fits. If you do the engineering, the second does. Test your own wording in the AI classifier and against the published register with the goods and services search.

What does a multi-class plan really cost?

Sec. 18A(2) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires a separate application for goods or services placed in different categories, and the Department applies the NICE classification under Section 18A(1) by notification in the Nepal Gazette.

So the cost of a wide plan is not only money. It is four examinations that can each raise a different objection, four publications, four certificates and four renewal dates to diary.

It is also four chances for the one-year use rule to bite. A class you filed for a product you never shipped is exposed in a way the class carrying your revenue is not.

Which class should you drop if you must choose?

Keep the one your invoices describe. If subscriptions are the business, Class 42 is not negotiable and everything else is a judgement call you can revisit next year.

Drop the aspirational class before the operating one. A roadmap item can be filed when it ships; a class you leave open on the revenue you already earn is the gap a competitor walks into.

Before deciding, look at how crowded each class is on the published register using our class-by-class search. A quiet class is cheap to clear and a busy one is where the objection comes from.

How do you file a SaaS mark in Nepal?

1. Search properly. Run the name, its spacing variants and its sound-alikes through our register search and the conflict checker, in every class you are considering.
2. Write the goods and services in plain words before you look at numbers, describing what a customer actually receives for the subscription.
3. Decide the mark. A word mark protects the name in any typeface; the logo is a separate application if the device does real work.
4. Prepare the papers. Section 17(1) takes the prescribed form with four specimens of the mark, and an agent needs a notarised power of attorney.
5. File one application per class, with identical applicant details on each, so the register does not end up naming two slightly different owners.
6. Answer examination on the merits. An objection has a deadline and a reasoned reply with evidence often settles it.
7. Watch the Industrial Property Bulletin for your own publication and for anything close to it.

A written clearance opinion beforehand is usually the cheapest step in the sequence, and our search and clearance service produces one.

What counts as use for a hosted product?

Sec. 18C says that where a registered trade mark is not brought into use within one year from the date of registration, the Department shall make the necessary inquiries and cancel the registration.

For a SaaS company that rule is sharper than it looks, because there is no packaging and no shelf. The evidence is the mark on the login screen, on invoices, on renewal notices, in the contract and in dated advertising.

Keep those from the week the certificate arrives, not from the week someone asks. A closed beta under a different working name is not use of the registered mark.

Who should be named as the owner?

The entity that will still exist after the next funding round. A mark registered to a founder personally, or to a holding company that later sells the operating business, has to be transferred before anyone can rely on it.

Buyers and investors read the register, not the pitch deck. Getting the applicant right at the start costs nothing; correcting it later is a separate process and a due-diligence question.

Can resellers and white-label partners use your mark?

Yes, with permission in writing. Sec. 21D allows a person who has registered a trade mark to permit another person to use it, and Section 16(2) cross-refers to that arrangement.

This matters more for SaaS than for most trades, because the software is often sold through partners, embedded in someone else's product, or run as a white-label instance under a different skin.

Put the permission on paper before the first partner launches, because the register will only ever name one owner.

Your customers are abroad. Does a Nepali registration help?

It protects you in Nepal and nowhere else. Section 21B says a mark registered abroad is not valid in Nepal unless registered here too.

Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so there is no single international filing that reaches it, and WIPO publishes the current party lists. A foreign company files nationally through a representative, as our guides for United States companies and Singapore companies describe.

Nepal is first-to-file in practice, so a long user list here counts for less than an earlier application by somebody else. Each market is its own decision, and Nepal is the one you can settle first and cheapest.

What happens when a similar mark is published?

You get a window, and it is short. A published trade mark can be opposed within an opposition window of 90 days from its publication in the Industrial Property Bulletin.

Rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day. Our opposition and enforcement team advises on whether a filing is worth challenging.

Does the Bulletin show you who else has filed?

It shows what has been published, which is the closest public picture Nepal has. Across our own index of bulletin entries, Class 42 carries roughly 1,341 published marks and Class 9 roughly 3,545, against more than 10,000 in the busiest consumer class.

That is an IP Sewa figure from published bulletin entries, not an official Department statistic, and it excludes applications still in examination.

The software classes are still thinly populated here, so a distinctive name has a fair chance of clearing. You can read a competitor's published portfolio with our owner search before settling on a name near theirs.

How long does a SaaS trademark last?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D, and a trade mark may be renewed any number of times under Section 23B(3), so the name can outlast several product generations.

Renewal falls due within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine before cancellation. Read the date off the registration certificate, check it with our renewal calculator, and our renewal service will keep every class on one calendar.

Common mistakes

• Filing Class 9 for a browser product. Nothing is installed, so the core service is unprotected.
• Adding Class 35 because you sell software. Selling your own product is not a business service for others.
• Choosing the consultancy wording by feel when Class 35 and Class 42 differ by a single word.
• Filing the logo only, so a rebrand leaves the name itself unregistered.
• Letting partners use the mark on a handshake instead of the written permission Section 21D contemplates.
• Treating company incorporation as brand protection. The Office of the Company Registrar answers a different question.
• Losing a class to the use rule because a roadmap product never shipped.

What does this look like for one company?

A Lalitpur company sells a browser-based payroll platform by subscription, ships a small mobile app for approvals, and takes implementation work from larger customers. That is Class 42 for the platform and the engineering, and Class 9 for the app.

It files the word mark in both, keeps Class 35 out because it advises nobody on their business, and signs written permissions with two accounting firms that resell it. This is an illustration, not a real case.

Fourteen months later the certificates arrive with different dates. Both go on one calendar, and both get their own evidence folder for Section 18C.

In short

A subscription is a service, so Class 42 is where a SaaS brand belongs, and Class 9 only joins it when something is genuinely installed.

Every extra class is another application, another examination and another renewal date, so file the classes your invoices describe, put partner permissions in writing, and keep dated proof of use from the day each certificate arrives.

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If you can describe what a subscriber receives, you can pick the class. The Department of Industry publishes its current procedure, our filing service handles the applications class by class, and you can contact our team with your pricing page and a shortlist of names before anything is lodged.