How Long Does Patent Protection Last? The Key Rules

Seven years from registration, renewable not more than twice for seven years at a time. So a Nepali patent is valid for 7, 14 or 21 years, and 21 is a hard ceiling set by Sec. 23B(3) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965.

Key takeaways

• Sec. 8(1) fixes the term at seven years from the date of registration under Sec. 7, not from your filing date.
• Sec. 23B(3) allows renewal "not more than Twice for a period of Seven years at a time", so the maximum is 21 years.
• Renewal is due within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on a fine; after that the registration is cancelled automatically.
• Patents are published in the Nepal Gazette under Sec. 7A(1). The word "bulletin" appears nowhere in the Act.
• Sec. 7A(3) runs the 35-day objection period from seeing or copying the patent, not from the notice.
• There is no inventive-step test in the Act. Sec. 5(1) asks two questions only: is it new, and is it useful to the general public.

How many years is a patent valid for in Nepal?

Three answers are possible, and which applies depends on whether renewals were filed on time. A patent never renewed lasts seven years. Renewed once it reaches fourteen, and renewed twice, twenty-one.

Twenty-one is the end of the line. Unlike a trade mark's renewal term, which repeats indefinitely, a patent's extensions are counted and capped.

That makes the two renewal dates the most important entries in an inventor's calendar. Nothing about the term happens automatically.

Where does the Act actually say that?

In two places. Sec. 8(1) provides that "the title of the patentee to the patent shall be valid only for a period of seven years from the date of registration thereof under Section 7, except when it is renewed under Section 23 B".

Sec. 23B(3) then supplies the cap. In a single sentence it limits all three rights: a patent "may be renewed not more than Twice for a period of Seven years at a time, a design not [more] than twice for a period of five years at a time, and a trade-mark any number of times for a period of seven years at a time".

Both can be read in the consolidated Act published by the Nepal Law Commission.

Why do so many sources miss the renewal cap?

Because the sentence is physically broken in half. In the consolidated PDF, Sec. 23B(3) stops at "a patent may be renewed not more than Twice for a period of Seven years at a", and four footnote markers and a page-footer line intervene before "time, a design not mode than twice…" resumes.

Read flat, the clause looks like a patent-only rule. Read past the footnotes, it is the single provision that caps all three Nepali industrial-property rights.

It is an easy mistake to make, and we made a version of it ourselves before reading the clause end to end.

Does the term run from filing or from registration?

From registration. Sec. 8(1) ties the clock to "the date of registration thereof under Section 7", which is the point at which the Department of Industry issues the registration certificate in the Schedule 2(a) format.

Your filing date still matters enormously, because Nepal operates first-to-file and Sec. 6(1)(a) bars registration where the patent is already registered to someone else. But it does not start the seven years.

The Schedule 2(a) certificate form reflects this, carrying printed fields for "Date of Renewal" and "Date on which the Renewed term expires". It is the term record, so keep the original safe.

What are the exact renewal deadlines?

1. Find the registration date on the certificate. Everything else is counted from it, so confirm it rather than working from the filing receipt.
2. Diarise year seven and year fourteen. Those are the only two renewal opportunities the Act allows.
3. File within 35 days of expiry. Sec. 23B(1) sets that window and points to the Schedule 2(d) renewal application form.
4. Pay the Schedule 3 fee. Renewal charges are listed separately from the application and registration charges.
5. If the window has passed, act inside six months. Sec. 23B(2) allows late renewal on payment of a fine during that period.
6. Decide who files. Sec. 20 lets an attorney act under a power of attorney, and the Act deems their acts your own.
7. Keep the endorsed certificate. It records the renewed term and its new expiry date.

Our renewal calculator will work the dates out from a registration date, and our team handles renewal filings through our patent service.

What happens if you miss the renewal window?

Sec. 23B(2) is unforgiving once the six months run out: if the right is not renewed, registration of the patent, design and trade mark "shall automatically cancelled". There is no discretion built into that sentence.

There is also no restoration provision anywhere in the Act. For a patent, cancellation is final in a way it is not for a brand, because you cannot simply file the same invention again — Sec. 5(1) asks whether it is a new invention, and your own published patent is now public.

How does a patent's term compare with a design and a trade mark?

All three sit in Sec. 23B(3), and all three differ. The comparison is worth keeping in front of you if your product carries more than one kind of right.

The design cap is the one most often reported wrongly, including in earlier IP Sewa copy. If you hold a registered design, read our industrial design page and the comparison in industrial design versus patent.

What did the Department examine before granting it?

Less than most readers expect. Sec. 5(1) directs the Department of Industry to investigate "whether the patent … is a new invention or not, and whether it is useful to the general public or not", taking expert advice if it considers that necessary.

Sec. 6(1) then lists when registration must be refused: the patent is already registered to another person, the applicant is neither the inventor nor acquired rights from one, it would adversely affect public health, conduct, morality or the national interest, or it contravenes Nepali law. Our guide to what cannot be patented in Nepal works through those grounds.

Sec. 2(a) defines the subject matter as "any useful invention relating to a new method of process or manufacture, operation or transmission of any material or a combination of materials, or that made on the basis of a new theory or formula".

Is there an inventive-step test in Nepal?

Not in the statute. We counted over the Act text and "inventive", "obvious", "prior art" and "novelty" each appear zero times. The test is two-limbed: new, and useful to the general public.

Treat inventive step as a real consideration in practice all the same, since an examiner weighing whether something is genuinely new asks similar questions. Just do not claim the Act imposes it.

The same caution applies to the words "specification" and "claims". Both are standard in Nepali filing practice and our drafters prepare them, but neither word appears in the Act, so they come from practice rather than from a section you can cite.

Where is a Nepali patent published?

In the Nepal Gazette. Sec. 7A(1) provides that patents registered under the Act, "other than those which must be kept secret in the national interest", shall be published by the Department in the Gazette.

This is the error we see most often. Many pages, including an earlier version of this one, say patents appear in the Industrial Property Bulletin. They do not, and the word "bulletin" is absent from the Act entirely.

Our own records agree. All 71,536 entries we have extracted across 122 bulletin issues are trade marks, which is exactly what Sec. 21A and Sec. 7A(1) predict. You can search that trademark record freely, but it will never contain a patent.

When does the 35-day objection clock start?

From seeing or copying the file, not from the Gazette notice. Sec. 7A(2) lets anyone who wishes to see or copy the particulars, maps or drawings do so on paying a prescribed fee, and Sec. 7A(3) gives 35 days "from the date of seeing or copying the patent" to complain.

That is unusual, and it differs from designs and trade marks, where Sec. 21A(2) runs the same 35 days from the date of publication. Practitioners also describe the sequence as publication, then objection, then registration, while Sec. 7A(1) reads as publication of patents already registered.

We state what both agree on and leave the sequence to an advocate on your file. More sits in how patent protection works in Nepal and how long IP registration takes.

What about a patent registered under older rules?

Sec. 8(2) covers it. For a patent registered before the current section commenced, the term fixed by the provision in force at the time of registration remains valid, and after that term expires the patent must be renewed under Sec. 23B.

If you hold an old Nepali patent, read the certificate rather than assuming the modern seven years applies. Sec. 26 is the related rule: registrations under the 1936 patent, design and trademark law are deemed registered under this Act.

Can a foreign patent extend your protection in Nepal?

No, and it cannot create protection here either. Sec. 21B states that a title registered in a foreign country "shall not be valid in Nepal unless it is registered in Nepal by the concerned person".

Nepal is also absent from the Patent Cooperation Treaty. On the depositary table published by WIPO, read on 2 October 2026, the PCT has 159 contracting States and Nepal is not among them, so no international application reaches Nepal and there is no receiving office here.

What is available is Sec. 21C, which lets the Department register a foreign-registered right without enquiries where the certificate is enclosed, and extends Paris Convention treatment to the holder. See international patent filing from Nepal.

A worked example

Imagine an engineering firm in Pokhara registers a grain-drying mechanism in March 2020. This is an illustration, not a real case. Its seven years run to March 2027, whatever date the application was filed.

The first renewal must be filed within 35 days of that March 2027 expiry, carrying the patent to 2034. The second, in 2034, carries it to 2041, and there is no third.

If the firm also wants the dryer's outward shape protected, that is an industrial design on its own five-year clock, and the brand on the machine is a trade mark renewable for as long as the firm trades.

Common mistakes

• Counting the seven years from the filing date instead of the registration date in Sec. 8(1).
• Assuming a third renewal exists. Sec. 23B(3) says "not more than Twice", and nothing extends it.
• Expecting a Nepali patent in the Industrial Property Bulletin, when Sec. 7A(1) puts it in the Nepal Gazette.
• Applying the trademark registration timeline to a patent. That figure is sourced for trade marks only.
• Telling an examiner the Act requires an inventive step, when Sec. 5(1) asks only new and useful.
• Letting the six-month late window close, after which Sec. 23B(2) cancels the registration automatically.
• Treating a lapsed patent as refilable, when the invention is already public.

In short

A Nepali patent is valid for seven years from registration, and can be renewed not more than twice for seven years at a time, giving a maximum of 21 years. Sec. 8(1) sets the term, Sec. 23B sets the renewal procedure and its cap, and missing the six-month late window cancels the right outright.

Check the registration date on your certificate, then put both renewal dates in two calendars. Confirm current procedure with the Department of Industry; our IP services and free tools cover the rest.

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Not sure when your patent expires, or whether a renewal is still possible? Contact our team with the registration date on your certificate and we will tell you exactly which window you are in.