Big brands redesign logos to stay legible, fit new channels, signal a change of direction or escape a conflict. The interesting part is what happens next: in Nepal a registration protects the mark you filed, so a redesign can quietly leave you holding a certificate for something you no longer use.
Key takeaways
- A Nepali application is filed with four specimens of the mark under Sec. 17(1), and those specimens are what the certificate covers.
- Roughly three in five published Nepali marks tie a name and a device together, so redrawing the device is not cosmetic.
- Sec. 18C lets the Department cancel a registration that is not brought into use within one year.
- Nepal is first-to-file, so a public rebrand before filing is an open invitation.
- The renewal term is seven years under Sec. 18D, and a rebrand often lands near one.
- A global rebrand does not reach Nepal by itself, because Sec. 21B makes a foreign title invalid here.
- Sec. 21C can shorten the road when the new mark is already registered abroad.
Why do big brands redesign their logos?
Four reasons cover most of it: the old mark stopped working on small screens, the business changed shape, the audience changed, or a lawyer found a conflict.
None of those is vanity. A logo is a working tool, and one that fails at 32 pixels or misdescribes the company is a liability on every invoice.
The fifth reason is the one nobody advertises: a redesign is sometimes the cheapest way out of an argument with another brand owner.
What does a redesign look like in practice?
Two publicly reported examples show the range. In 2010 the retailer Gap unveiled a new logo and withdrew it within about a week after public objection.
In 2019 Mastercard removed its name from the logo altogether, leaving only the two interlocking circles, on the argument that the symbol alone was recognised.
One retreat, one advance, and in both the mark on the register had to keep up with the mark on the packaging.
Does a redesign change your legal position in Nepal?
It can, and the reason is in the filing itself. Sec. 17(1) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 requires the application to carry four specimens of the mark.
Those specimens are the mark. The registration certificate issued under Sec. 18 records what was lodged, not the intention behind it.
So a rebrand does not update anything at the Department of Industry. The register keeps showing the old artwork until a new application is filed and granted.
How are Nepali marks actually filed?
This matters more here than in most countries, because of how Nepali businesses file. Each bulletin entry records whether a mark is a word, a device or both.
| Kind of mark | Share of published entries | What a redesign does to it |
|---|---|---|
| Word and label | About three in five | The name and the device are registered as one thing |
| Word only | About one in three | A visual refresh changes nothing on the register |
| Label only | About one in twenty-five | The image is the whole mark, so any change matters |
These are IP Sewa proportions across marks published in the Industrial Property Bulletin, not official Department statistics, and they describe filings rather than live registrations.
Why does a combined mark make a redesign risky?
Because the certificate covers the pair. If your registration is a word locked to a device, the device is not decoration; it is half of the registered thing.
A word-only registration is far more forgiving. You can redraw the letters, change the colour and rebuild the lockup without touching what you own.
Very few Nepali businesses hold both a word-only and a combined filing of the same brand, which is exactly the redundancy a rebrand would have wanted.
What happens to the old registration?
It keeps running until its term ends or the Department cancels it. Nothing about a rebrand removes it from the register.
The quiet risk is Sec. 18C: where a registered trade mark is not brought into use within one year of registration, the Department shall inquire and cancel it.
That bites hardest on the new mark, not the old one. File the redesigned logo, sit on the launch for a year, and the fresh registration is the one exposed.
Should you renew a mark you no longer use?
Often yes, at least for one more term. Sec. 18D gives a trade mark seven years from registration, renewable under Sec. 23B.
The renewal must be filed within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on a fine, after which the registration is cancelled automatically.
An old mark still blocks a copycat who wants to trade on the identity you just left behind. Our renewal calculator works out the date.
If the dates have already slipped, our renewal team can tell you which window you are still inside.
What is the gap between launch and certificate?
This is the part rebrands underestimate. Between the day the new logo goes public and the day a certificate issues, you hold no registered right in it.
Nepal is first-to-file, so the queue position that matters is the application date, not the launch date or the design brief.
You also cannot print the registered symbol during that window. Sec. 18B forbids using a mark as a registered trade mark without registering it.
Sec. 19 backs that with a fine and confiscation of the goods connected with the offence, which for a printed packaging run is the expensive half.
Publication then opens the objection period. A published trademark can be opposed within an opposition window of 90 days; rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.
How should a rebrand be sequenced?
- Freeze the artwork. Keep one master file of the exact mark, because that is what the specimens will show.
- Clear it privately. Run the conflict checker and look at close, sound-alike and translated forms.
- Decide word or device. Filing the word separately is the cheapest insurance against the next redesign.
- Pick the classes. A rebrand that adds a product line usually adds a class with it.
- File before the reveal. The application date is what buys your position.
- Keep the old mark alive. Use it somewhere, and renew it if the date falls inside the transition.
- Watch the Bulletin. The opposition window is where a rival brand owner will appear.
Which classes does the new logo need?
Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for goods or services in different categories, so one filing buys one class.
Sec. 18A(3) then allows a mark registered in one category to be registered in another if it properly falls there.
Nepal uses the NICE classification of 45 classes, maintained by WIPO. Work out your real list with the class finder.
What about distributors and franchisees?
They need paperwork too, and this is regularly missed. Sec. 16(2) stops anyone using a registered mark without transfer of ownership or written permission.
Sec. 21D sets out how: the owner and the user file a joint application to the Department with the prescribed fee.
A rebrand that reissues signage to fifty dealers is fifty relationships that should point at the new registration, not the retired one.
What if the rebrand changes who owns the mark?
Group restructuring often travels with a rebrand, and the mark has to move deliberately rather than by assumption alone.
Sec. 21D covers a transfer of ownership through the same joint application route, and the Department records the receiving party.
An unrecorded transfer leaves the register naming a company that may no longer trade, which is awkward to produce in a dispute.
Can the Department refuse the new logo?
Yes, and the grounds are broader than people expect. The proviso to Sec. 18(1) lets the Department refuse a mark on several bases.
It covers a mark that may hurt the prestige of a person or institution, that harms public conduct or morality, that undermines the national interest, or that undermines another trader's reputation.
A redesign that drifts toward a competitor's look sits squarely in that last category, whatever the design rationale was.
Sec. 18(3) also lets the Department cancel a registration later on the same grounds, after giving the holder a chance to show cause.
Does a global rebrand reach Nepal automatically?
No. Sec. 21B says title to a mark registered in a foreign country is not valid in Nepal unless it is registered here.
Nepal is outside the Madrid System, so a multinational rolling a new identity through dozens of registries still has to file here separately.
A foreign applicant appoints a local representative. Sec. 20 recognises an attorney or legal practitioner, and a notarised power of attorney is the usual instrument.
Is there a shortcut for a mark already registered abroad?
There is one worth knowing about. Sec. 21C allows the Department to register a foreign-registered mark without conducting any enquiries when the foreign certificate is enclosed.
The same section says the Department shall extend the facility of the Paris Convention to the registration holder.
Confirm current practice with the Department before relying on it, and read the statute itself at the Nepal Law Commission.
Do Nepali businesses actually re-file?
More than you would expect. Across the marks published in our bulletins, roughly 700 owner-and-name combinations appear in more than one issue.
That is a business coming back to the register with the same brand, usually because something about the mark or the goods has changed.
Look up any owner's filings with our owner search, and you will often see a name filed once plainly and once with a device.
What about the company name, the domain and the handle?
None of them is a trademark. A company name sits on the Office of the Company Registrar's record and proves that a company exists, nothing more.
A domain is a contract with a registrar and a verified handle is a platform's own decision, so neither creates a right under Sec. 18.
A rebrand touches all three at once, which is why they get confused. Our guide to locking down a name across all three sets out the order.
Common mistakes
- Announcing before filing. A public reveal in a first-to-file country is free intelligence for a squatter.
- Assuming the old certificate stretches. It covers the specimens that were lodged with it.
- Dropping the old mark overnight. Keep it in use while the new one is pending.
- Filing only the new device. The word is what a copier takes first.
- Forgetting the licensees. Sec. 21D records are not optional paperwork.
- Printing the registered symbol early. Sec. 19 allows a fine and confiscation.
A worked example
This is an illustration, not a real case. A Kathmandu café chain registered a word-and-device mark in Class 43 eight years ago and has renewed it once.
It now moves to a flat symbol and a shortened name, rolls the new signage out to eleven outlets, and plans to file in a few months.
Three problems appear at once: the certificate no longer matches the signage, eleven franchise permissions point at a retired mark, and anyone may file the new name tomorrow.
Filing first would have cost the same money in a different order. That is usually the whole difference.
Is the logo protected by anything else?
Possibly, and the answer depends on what the logo is doing. A mark that identifies goods or services is trademark territory.
A product's shape, pattern or ornament is a different right, handled through industrial design registration rather than a trade mark filing.
If someone copies your new identity before you are registered, our enforcement team can look at what is actually available.
In short
Brands redesign logos for sound commercial reasons, and the design decision is rarely the problem. The sequencing is.
In Nepal the register holds the mark you filed, so treat a redesign as a filing question before it becomes a launch date.
Search first on our trademark database, then talk to our registration team about what the new identity actually needs.
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If a redesign is already on your desk and you cannot tell whether your existing certificate still covers it, send us the old artwork, the new artwork and your registration number.
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