You cannot file a patent online in Nepal. We re-checked the Department of Industry and its online system in September 2026 and found no electronic route for patents, designs or trade marks. Everything before the filing can be done remotely; the filing itself cannot.
Key takeaways
- There is no public patent e-filing portal at the Department of Industry that we could find.
- The DoI's own online system, IMIS, is for industry registration. The word "patent" appears nowhere in its code.
- The DoI publishes paper checklists instead, each ending in a receipt proving the application fee was paid.
- There is no public application-status tracker, so progress comes from the Department or your agent.
- Sec. 10 still requires a patentee to lodge a copy of the design or model with the National Archive.
- Nepal is not a PCT member, so there is no international online filing route into Nepal either.
- A registered patent runs seven years under Sec. 8, renewable twice, so twenty-one years is the ceiling.
What did we actually check, and when?
On 30 September 2026 we read the Department of Industry website, its downloads page, its industrial property section page, and both of the online systems it links to.
The homepage links two systems, an internal and an external instance of IMIS, the Industry Management Information System. Neither offers an industrial property service.
We also downloaded the whole IMIS front-end, roughly six megabytes of code across eighty files, and searched it. "Patent" appears zero times, "industrial property" zero times, and "trademark" only as an icon name and as one field on an industry case record.
That last point is worth stating plainly, because a system with no patent module cannot acquire one quietly. This is evidence about what the software does, not an inference from a missing link.
What does the DoI publish instead?
Checklists. The Department's industrial property section page lists, separately, domestic and foreign patent registration, domestic and foreign design registration, domestic and foreign trade mark registration, renewals, transfers and complaints.
Each is a list of papers. For a domestic patent it wants a proper application, an article describing the invention, maps and drawings, the claim, the inventor's details, the owner's details, an authority document if an agent signs, and the fee receipt.
The general downloads page carries fifteen files, and none of them is a patent or design form. The forms live on the section page, and a downloadable form is not an online filing.
Why can't the Act simply be digitised?
Because several steps in the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 are physical by design, and a website cannot change a statute. Start with the application itself.
Sec. 4 requires the application to carry maps and drawings with particulars of the invention, together with the prescribed fee, and the Department's checklist asks for the paid receipt as a document in the bundle.
Sec. 10 goes further. It requires the patentee to submit to the National Archive a copy of the design or model of the article manufactured according to the registered patent.
Then there is inspection. Sec. 7A(2) lets anyone see or copy the particulars, maps or drawings of a published patent on payment of a fee, which assumes a file somebody attends to read.
When is a Nepali patent published?
After it is registered, not before. Sec. 7A(1) says patents registered under the Act, other than those that must be kept secret in the national interest, are published by the Department in the Nepal Gazette.
That is the opposite order from many countries, where an application is published while it is still pending. The Act contains no pre-grant publication and no clock running from the filing date.
The word "bulletin" never appears in the Act. The Industrial Property Bulletin our register search indexes carries trade marks, and a mark listed there is a published mark rather than a confirmed registration.
How long is the objection window, really?
Sec. 7A(3) gives 35 days, and the trap is where they start. They run from the date of seeing or copying the patent under Sec. 7A(2), not from the date of the notice.
That is unlike designs and trade marks, where Sec. 21A(2) runs 35 days from publication itself. Anyone quoting a single 35-day rule for all three rights has flattened a real difference.
It is also one more reason the process resists digitising: the clock is tied to an act of physical inspection.
Does the Department have a deadline of its own?
No. We checked every time limit in the patent chapter, and the only period stated anywhere in Sections 3 to 12 is the 35 days in Sec. 7A(3).
So the Act imposes nothing on the Department for examination or registration. Anyone quoting a firm month figure for a Nepali patent is describing experience, not a rule.
We do not publish an end-to-end patent timeline for that reason. Ask us at what a case like yours has taken recently rather than trusting a number on a page.
How do you run the whole thing from your desk?
- Write the invention down. The problem, the mechanism, and how it is made, operated or used.
- Search earlier technology. Free public databases will do for a first pass; our note on searching for patents explains the limits.
- Draft the description and claims. The claims are the boundary of the right, so this is where the work belongs.
- Prepare the drawings. Drawn digitally, printed for the bundle, and clear enough to follow.
- Sign a power of attorney. Notarised, then couriered to the representative who will lodge for you.
- Lodge and pay. Your agent files the bundle with the receipt showing the application fee has been paid.
- Answer, then collect. Draft replies remotely, and keep the registration certificate safe once it issues.
Can a foreign applicant file from abroad?
Yes, without ever travelling. A Nepal-based representative holding a notarised authority document can lodge and follow the case for you.
That is what "filing from abroad" means here. It is remote instruction with local lodgement, and it is entirely normal practice.
The same is true for a product shape, which is a different right with its own route; our industrial design service covers that side.
The DoI's checklist for a foreign patent asks for two extra things beyond the domestic list: evidence of the first application elsewhere, and a certified copy of the foreign registration certificate where one exists.
Is there an international online route into Nepal?
No. Nepal is not a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty, so there is no receiving office here and no international application that designates Nepal.
A national or resident of Nepal cannot file a PCT application at all. Our guide to international patent filing from Nepal sets out what that leaves.
What does apply is the Paris Convention, which Nepal joined in 2001, and whose priority rules can matter if you filed abroad first. WIPO publishes the treaty texts and the membership tables.
Can you track a Nepali patent application online?
Not publicly. We found no application-status service on the Department's site, and IMIS does not carry industrial property cases.
So status comes from the Department directly or from whoever filed for you. Keep your own file: the application number, dated copies of everything lodged, and every response.
Our application number lookup searches published trade mark entries only. It is not a patent tracker, and nothing on our site is.
What does the Act ask of an invention?
Two things, and only two. Sec. 5(1) tells the Department to investigate, taking expert advice where it thinks necessary, whether the invention is new and whether it is useful to the general public.
The words "inventive step", "obvious", "novelty" and "prior art" appear nowhere in the Act. Those concepts are real in practice and in other systems, but do not quote them as Nepali statutory tests.
Sec. 6 then lists the refusals: already registered to another, the applicant is not the inventor or successor, harm to public health, conduct, morality or the national interest, or conflict with existing law.
Our note on what can be patented in Nepal works through those in more detail than a filing checklist can.
What documents does the filing actually need?
Is any of this different for a design or a trade mark?
| Right | Online filing? | Where it is published | Objection window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patent | No route found | Nepal Gazette, after registration | 35 days from seeing or copying. |
| Industrial design | No route found | Published under Sec. 21A. | 35 days from publication. |
| Trade mark | No route found | Industrial Property Bulletin | 35 days in the Act; 90 in practice. |
The trade mark position is covered in detail in our companion piece on whether you can register a trademark online in Nepal, and the answer there is the same.
What does it cost to work this way?
Cost here is driven by the invention, not by the channel. A mechanical improvement with three drawings is not the same job as a chemical process or a control system.
Notarisation, courier, translation, drawings and any examination response all add work, and an objection adds more. Working digitally saves trips; it does not remove a single official step.
Tell us what the invention is and we will scope it properly through our patent registration service. Our note on what drives patent cost explains the variables.
How long does the protection last?
Sec. 8 gives seven years from the date of registration, and renewal runs through Sec. 23B. The renewal term is another seven years.
Sec. 23B(3) caps a patent at not more than two renewals, so twenty-one years is the ceiling. A trade mark, by contrast, may be renewed any number of times.
Sec. 23B(1) puts renewal within 35 days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine, after which the registration is cancelled automatically.
Common mistakes
- Treating a saved draft as a filing. A cloud folder creates no date at the Department.
- Believing a third-party "official DoI portal". Private services can prepare and arrange filing; none of them is the registrar.
- Demonstrating before filing. Nepal is first-to-file, and a public launch is hard to undo.
- Assuming a PCT filing covers Nepal. It does not, because Nepal is not a member.
- Sending a pitch deck as the specification. One explains market value; the other explains how the thing works.
- Quoting a fixed processing time. The Act sets the Department no deadline at all.
A worked example
This is an illustration, not a real case. An engineer in Pokhara develops a low-water grain cleaner for small mills and wants to protect it before showing it at a trade fair.
She records the mechanism, commissions a search, and works with an agent over email to draft the description and claims. All of that happens on screen.
Then three things leave the screen: she signs and notarises the authority document, the agent pays the fee and lodges the bundle with the drawings, and later a copy of the model goes to the National Archive.
The trade fair comes after the lodgement, not before. That ordering is the only part of the plan she cannot fix afterwards.
In short
There is no online patent filing in Nepal, and the obstacle is not a missing website. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 assumes paper, drawings, a fee receipt and a physical file.
Do the thinking remotely, file through a representative, and treat any site claiming to be the official portal with suspicion. Check the source yourself on the Nepal Law Commission site.
When you are ready to move, our patent team can review the disclosure and take the filing from there.
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If you have an invention and a deadline, send us the description and the date you need to show it publicly.
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