A patent application in Nepal must name a natural person as the inventor — the Department of Industry will reject any filing that lists an AI system, a machine-learning model, or any other non-human entity. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 leaves no room for AI inventorship, and that position mirrors the consistent rejection of AI-as-inventor applications by patent offices and courts worldwide.
Key Takeaways
- The PDTA 1965 treats an inventor as a natural person — only a human being qualifies; an AI cannot be named as inventor on a Nepal patent application.
- Nepal's Department of Industry applies the same principle that the USPTO, EPO, UKIPO and UK Supreme Court have all confirmed: an inventor must be human.
- AI-assisted inventions remain fully patentable — the human who conceived the inventive step is named as inventor; the AI is treated as a tool.
- Filing an AI-generated invention without a human inventor will result in rejection during DoI examination.
- Ownership follows the human inventor — the named individual, or their employer under contract, holds the patent rights; an AI cannot own property under Nepali law.
- The patent term is 7 years from registration, renewable, regardless of whether AI was used in research and development.
What does Nepal's patent law say about who can be an inventor?
The PDTA 1965 — the single statute covering patents, designs and trademarks in Nepal — uses the word "person" throughout its inventor-related provisions. The Department of Industry reads "person" as a natural human being, not a legal construct or a machine. The Act speaks of "a person who has invented" — the verb "invent" implies an act of intellectual conception that Nepali law attributes only to a human mind. An AI system has no legal personality in Nepal: it cannot sign a declaration, cannot assign rights, and cannot own property. Those are foundational principles, not gaps the DoI is working to fill. When you file naming a natural person as inventor, you are following the law as written.
Has any country allowed an AI to be an inventor?
No country has granted a patent with an AI listed as inventor through its ordinary court or office process. The DABUS test cases — where a machine-learning system called DABUS was named as inventor on parallel applications — were rejected by the USPTO, the European Patent Office, the UK Intellectual Property Office, and ultimately the UK Supreme Court. Australia's Federal Court briefly took a different view in 2021, but the Full Federal Court reversed that decision in 2022. South Africa granted a DABUS patent in 2021, but South Africa runs a deposit system with no substantive examination — the patent was registered without any review of the inventor question, so it carries no precedential weight. Nepal's DoI has not issued a formal policy statement on AI inventorship, but the PDTA's plain language and the consistent global rejection point to the same outcome here.
Can I patent an AI-assisted invention in Nepal?
Yes — and this covers most real-world commercial innovation. If you used an AI tool for research, modelling, simulation or data analysis, but a human being conceived the inventive step — identified the problem, formulated the hypothesis, recognised which output was valuable — that human is the inventor. The AI is treated exactly like any other laboratory instrument. You list the human who made the inventive contribution on the patent application, and the DoI examines it under the same criteria applied to any other patent: novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability. What you cannot do is tell the DoI that nobody qualifies as an inventor because an AI generated everything and no human contributed. That application will be rejected at examination. If you are genuinely unsure whether a human contribution crosses the inventorship threshold, get a professional assessment before filing — a flawed inventor declaration can render a patent invalid later.
How do I register a patent in Nepal when AI was involved?
The registration process is the same whether AI was used or not. Here are the steps:
- Confirm the human inventor. Identify the natural person who conceived the inventive concept. If multiple people contributed, list each co-inventor. Where AI was used, make sure the human contribution is substantive — routine application of an AI tool does not amount to inventorship.
- Conduct a patent search. Search existing Nepal patents and international databases to verify novelty. Use our application-number lookup tool or search the IP database to check what is already registered at the DoI.
- Prepare the application. Draft a specification describing the invention in full, claims defining the scope of protection, and any necessary drawings. The application must name the human inventor(s) and the applicant — who may be the inventor or their employer.
- File with the Department of Industry. Submit the application with the required documents. Foreign applicants must file through a registered Nepal-based agent with a notarised Power of Attorney.
- DoI examination. The Department examines the application for patentability — novelty, inventive step, industrial application — and checks that the inventor is a natural person.
- Publication and opposition. If the application passes examination, it is published in the Industrial Property Bulletin. Third parties may oppose within the statutory window.
- Registration and certificate. If unopposed, you pay the registration fee and receive the patent certificate. The patent is valid for 7 years from the registration date and is renewable.
What documents are required for a Nepal patent application?
| Document | Domestic applicant | Foreign applicant |
|---|---|---|
| Application form (Schedule 1) | ✅ Required | ✅ Required |
| Patent specification (description, claims, drawings) | ✅ Required | ✅ Required |
| Notarised Power of Attorney | ✅ Required | ✅ Required |
| Board resolution of the company (if applicable) | ✅ Required | ✅ Required |
| Notarised copy of foreign filing receipt (priority claim) | N/A | ✅ If claiming priority |
| Certificate of industry / tax clearance | ✅ Required | N/A |
Foreign applicants always file through a Nepal-based IP agent. The Power of Attorney must be signed, sealed, and attested by two witnesses — a requirement the DoI enforces strictly. For more on the full filing process, see our guide to the patent application process in Nepal.
What are the most common AI patent issues people get wrong?
We see three mistakes repeatedly. First, applicants list a company or a team as the inventor — the DoI requires a named natural person, not an organisation. Second, some assume that using an AI tool automatically makes the AI a co-inventor; it does not, as long as a human conceived the inventive step. Third, people file without checking whether their AI-generated output is actually novel — generative AI often recombines known information in ways that are not patentable. A pre-filing patent search is the cheapest insurance against a wasted application.
Who owns the patent rights when AI is used in the invention process?
Under the PDTA, the human inventor owns the rights by default. If the inventor created the invention in the course of employment, the employer typically owns the rights under the employment contract — the AI tool used makes no difference to the ownership analysis. An AI system has no legal capacity to own property, to assign rights, or to enter into a contract under Nepali law. This matches the position worldwide: even in the DABUS cases, the applicant was the AI's owner, not the AI itself. If you are an employer, make sure your employment agreements include clear IP-assignment clauses so there is no ambiguity about who owns AI-assisted inventions developed on company time.
Is Nepal likely to change its patent law to allow AI inventors?
No legislative movement in that direction is visible. Nepal is not a member of the Patent Cooperation Treaty or the Madrid System, and the pace of IP law reform here is measured. The PDTA 1965 has been amended several times — most significantly in 2006 — but none of those amendments touched the definition of an inventor. International discussions continue at WIPO, and countries including the UK and the US have run consultations, but the consensus remains that legislative change is premature. If anything shifts, it will happen in major patent offices first — the EPO, the USPTO, the JPO — and Nepal would likely follow years later, if at all. For the foreseeable future, a human inventor is a non-negotiable requirement in Nepal.
What should I do now if my invention involved AI?
Document the human contribution clearly. Write down who conceived the problem, who designed the experiments, who interpreted the AI's outputs, and who recognised that the result was novel and useful. That record will support your inventorship determination if it is ever challenged. Then get a professional assessment of patentability — you can start with our patent search guide to check for prior art. If the invention is novel and has an industrial application, you can proceed with a standard patent application naming the human contributor as inventor. If you are genuinely unsure whether the human contribution crosses the inventorship threshold, speak with an IP professional before filing — a flawed inventor declaration can render a patent invalid in any enforcement action. For a deeper look at how Nepal's patent system works, see how patent protection works in Nepal and our comparison of industrial designs versus patents. If you are filing from outside Nepal, review the process for international patent filing from Nepal.
In short
Nepal's patent law is clear: only a natural person can be an inventor. An AI system — no matter how autonomous — cannot be named on a patent application at the Department of Industry. But that does not block AI-assisted innovation. As long as a human conceived the inventive step, the patent is valid and the AI is simply a tool. The practical task is to document the human contribution, run a proper patent search, and file a well-drafted application that names the right people.
If you are working on an AI-assisted invention and want clarity on inventorship, search the Nepal IP database to understand the landscape, or reach out to our team for a personalised assessment. You can also explore our patent registration service to see how we guide applications from drafting to certificate.
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