Industrial Design CAD Software: What Should You Use?

No CAD product is required or approved for a Nepali design filing. Sec. 13 asks for four copies of the design, with maps, drawings and particulars. Choose the tool that produces those cleanly; the drawings, not the software, define what you get.

Key takeaways

• Sec. 13(1) requires the application plus four copies of the design and its maps, drawings and particulars.
• Practice asks for plan, elevation and side views, plus a notarised statement of originality.
• We found no named or approved software anywhere in the Act or on the Department's pages.
• The submitted views are the boundary of the right, so a hidden surface is an unprotected surface.
• Sec. 14(1) refuses a design already registered to another, or one that offends morality or the national interest.
• A design runs five years under Sec. 14A, and Sec. 23B(3) allows not more than two renewals.
• The design objection window is 35 days from publication, not the 90 days used for trade marks.

What does the Act actually ask for?

Sec. 13(1) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 is short. A person wanting to register the design of an article submits an application in the prescribed form, together with four copies of the design and maps, and drawings and particulars of it.

That is the statutory list. There is no format requirement, no file type, no resolution and no mention of computer-aided design anywhere in the chapter.

Read it yourself before relying on any summary, ours included. The consolidated English text is on the Nepal Law Commission site.

Why does the drawing set define the right?

Because a design right protects appearance, and the only appearance anyone can examine later is the one you filed. Nobody compares a competitor's product with the object in your workshop.

So treat the set as a boundary rather than as a presentation. A surface that no view shows clearly is a surface you will struggle to argue about afterwards.

That is the practical difference between design work and legal drafting on the same file. Our note on design rights in Nepal covers what the right does once you have it.

Which views should the set contain?

Plan, elevation and side views are the working expectation in practice, and that is what the advocate notes we rely on describe. Add further views wherever the shape is not obvious from those three.

Consistency across the views matters as much as the views themselves. Same scale, same orientation convention, same line weights, the same distinctive feature visible in each one where it should be.

A single attractive perspective image is the commonest weak submission. It looks best and hides most, which is exactly the wrong trade for this purpose.

Does the Department require particular software?

We found nothing requiring, approving or even naming one. The Act's design chapter is silent on tools, and the Department of Industry publishes document checklists rather than software specifications.

So the question "which CAD should I buy" has no legal answer, and any page that gives you one is answering a different question from the one you asked.

What does have an answer is what the output must do. Confirm the accepted submission format with the Department or your representative before you export anything final.

What should the software be able to do?

Five things, in order of how often their absence causes trouble. Generate orthographic views from one model, control line weights, suppress construction geometry, hold a consistent scale, and export vector output that stays sharp in print.

Anything that does those is adequate, whether it is a parametric package, a surface modeller or a plain two-dimensional drafting tool. The product form should decide, not the price list.

Curved consumer goods usually reward surface tools; a machined part rewards parametric modelling; a simple flat article often needs nothing more than careful two-dimensional drafting.

Is a photorealistic render enough?

No, and it is the most common problem we see. Lighting, reflections and textures hide edges, and a single perspective compresses the very proportions an examiner needs to read.

Keep renders as supporting material if they help explain a finish or a colour. Do not let them replace the orthographic set that carries the actual information.

The same caution applies in reverse. An engineering drawing crowded with tolerances and section callouts describes manufacture rather than appearance, and appearance is what this right covers.

What else goes with the drawings?

The practice checklist we work to is short, and every item on it is a document rather than a file format.

• The prescribed application form, with the applicant's details.
• Four copies of the design, with the maps and drawings.
• A notarised statement of the claim reflecting originality.
• A notarised power of attorney where a representative files.
• Certified documents in English where a foreign filing or priority is relied on.
• The article correctly named, so the drawings and the words describe one thing.

How do you prepare the set?

1. Freeze the design. Decide exactly which shape, pattern or ornament you are claiming.
2. Build or clean the model. Make it match the article you will actually make and sell.
3. Generate the views from that model. Derived views cannot disagree with each other the way hand-redrawn ones can.
4. Strip the workshop information. Construction lines, tolerances and notes all go.
5. Check the set against itself. Scale, orientation, line weight, and the feature visible in each view.
6. Print it before you file it. Review at real size, not zoomed on a screen.
7. Align the words. Article name, originality statement and drawings must describe the same object.

A useful final test: can somebody who has never seen the product describe its outside from the sheets alone? If not, add a view rather than a paragraph.

What will get a design refused?

Sec. 14(1) carries the grounds. The Department shall not register a design that hurts the prestige of any individual or institution, adversely affects public conduct or morality, undermines the national interest, or has already been registered in another person's name.

The last of those is the one your drawings interact with. A design already on the register in someone else's name blocks yours, which is why searching before filing is worth the hour.

Note also Sec. 14(3): the Department may cancel a registration if it is satisfied one of those circumstances exists, after giving the holder a chance to show cause.

Is a design the right right at all?

Only for appearance. If the value is in how the article works, that is a patent question, covered in what can be patented in Nepal, and if it is in the name, that is a trade mark question.

One product often needs two of these. A kettle can carry a registered design for its outline, a patent question for its element, and a trade mark for its name, filed in a class of the NICE classification.

Our comparison of design against patent in Nepal works through the boundary, and our class finder handles the trade mark side.

What if the value is really in the name?

Then no drawing set will help you, because a design covers the article's appearance and not the word printed on it. That is a separate filing with a separate test.

A trade mark is filed per class, so the goods you sell decide how many applications you need. Our class suggester gives a first reading from a plain description.

Read what can be trademarked in Nepal before assuming a product name is protectable, and start with our trade mark registration service when it is.

How long does a design last?

Sec. 14A gives five years from the date of registration. Renewal runs through Sec. 23B, within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine before the registration is cancelled automatically.

The renewal term is another five years, and Sec. 23B(3) permits not more than two renewals for a design. Fifteen years is therefore the ceiling.

Diary those dates from the day the registration certificate arrives. Our note on design renewal in Nepal covers the mechanics.

When is a design published?

Sec. 21A(1) says the Department publishes designs registered under Sec. 14, along with particulars of renewal or cancellation, for public information. Sec. 21A(2) then gives 35 days from that publication for an objection.

Two cautions. The Act's wording puts publication after registration, so do not describe it as a pre-grant step; and the bulletin archive our register search indexes carries trade marks, not designs.

The 35 days are also not the 90-day trade mark opposition period. Applying the trade mark number to a design would cost you most of the window.

Does filing order matter?

Yes. Nepal's system runs on first-to-file, and Sec. 14(1) refuses a design already registered in another person's name, so the register decides rather than the sketchbook.

Keep dated model files, sketches and prototype photographs anyway. They help establish who created what, which matters in an ownership dispute even though they create no registered right.

Public disclosure before filing is the risk everyone underestimates. Show the product after the application is in, not at the trade fair before it.

Common mistakes

• Filing a render alone. One flattering viewpoint is the weakest possible set.
• Changing the product after drawing it. Update every view and the originality statement together.
• Leaving dimensions in. They describe manufacture, and manufacture is not what this right covers.
• Hiding the distinctive feature behind shading, a fold or an unlucky viewing angle.
• Assuming a native file is acceptable. Confirm the submission format before you export.
• Using the 90-day figure. The design objection window is 35 days.
• Treating five years as renewable forever. Two renewals is the statutory maximum.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A small Nepali workshop designs a folding serving table whose value sits in the tabletop outline, the leg geometry and an edge pattern.

It models the final article, derives plan, front, rear and side views from that one model, and adds a perspective view only as support. Dimensions and construction lines come out.

The originality statement names the outline, the leg arrangement and the pattern, and the drawings show all three in at least two views each. Four matching copies go in with the form.

The folding mechanism is set aside as a separate question for our patent team, and the workshop's name for the table is a third question again.

What about file formats and 3D models?

The Act says nothing about either, so this is a practice question rather than a legal one. A vector export that prints cleanly at real size is the safe general answer.

Keep the editable source file regardless. If a view has to be redrawn during examination, rebuilding it from the model is far quicker than reconstructing it from a flat export.

Do not assume a three-dimensional file will be accepted as the representation. Ask before you rely on it, and see the design application process for the wider sequence.

In short

Choose the simplest tool that models your article accurately and produces consistent plan, elevation and side views. Then spend the saved effort on the set itself, because that is what the Department examines and what a competitor is later compared against.

The drawings, the four copies, the originality statement and the timing are the things that decide this filing. WIPO is useful background on how design systems work elsewhere, though Nepal is outside the international design route.

Send us the views before you file and our industrial design team will tell you what is missing.

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If you are not sure whether your product needs a design filing, a patent, a trade mark or two of the three, show us the drawings and we will tell you.