What Your Patent Certificate Means

A Nepal patent certificate is the Department of Industry's record that your invention is registered under the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965. It is issued under Sec. 7(1) in the Schedule 2(a) format. It starts a seven-year term, and it brings three duties most owners never hear about.

Key takeaways

• Registered patents are published in the Nepal Gazette under Sec. 7A(1) — not in the Industrial Property Bulletin, which carries trade marks.
• Sec. 7A(3) runs its 35-day objection window from the date someone sees or copies the patent file, not from the notice.
• The Act never uses the words "claims" or "specification". Scope rests on the principle or formula, maps and drawings that Sec. 4 required.
• Sec. 6(2) lets the Department cancel a registered patent, after giving the patentee a chance to show cause.
• Sec. 10 obliges the patentee to deposit a copy of the design or model with the National Archive.
• Sec. 23B(3) allows two renewals of seven years each, so about twenty-one years in total and no more.

What does a Nepal patent certificate actually prove?

It proves one specific thing: that the Department of Industry (DoI) completed its Sec. 5 investigation and decided to register the invention in your name under Sec. 7(1).

That investigation asked only two questions. Sec. 5(1) requires the Department to ascertain whether the invention is new, and whether it is useful to the general public. Nothing more is tested at that stage.

So the certificate is an administrative decision, not a court judgment on who invented what. It is strong evidence of title and the starting point for every later dealing — a licence, a sale, a renewal or a complaint.

Where is a Nepali patent actually published?

In the Nepal Gazette. Sec. 7A(1) says patents registered under the Act, other than those kept secret in the national interest, "shall be published by the Department in the Nepal Gazette for the information of the public".

Not the Industrial Property Bulletin. That is a common error, including on pages that are otherwise careful. The Bulletin is the trade mark record: our own archive holds 122 issues and 71,536 entries, and every one of them is a trade mark.

Sec. 21A, the clause that creates Bulletin-style publication, names registered designs and trade marks. Patents sit under Sec. 7A and go somewhere else entirely.

When does the 35-day objection clock start?

Later than you would expect, and from a different event. Sec. 7A(2) lets anyone who wants to see or copy the particulars, maps or drawings of a published patent do so on payment of a prescribed fee.

Sec. 7A(3) then gives an objector 35 days to complain to the Department — counted from the date of seeing or copying, not from the Gazette notice. Sec. 7A(4) requires the Department to inquire and act.

Compare Sec. 21A(2), where a design or trade mark objection runs 35 days from publication. A patent's exposure window is therefore less predictable than a trade mark's. Our notes on how patent protection works and on searching Nepali patents cover the practical side.

What defines the scope of what you own?

Here the Act and ordinary patent vocabulary part company. The words "claims" and "specification" do not appear anywhere in the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965.

What the Act asks for is in Sec. 4(1) and Schedule 1(A): the process of manufacturing, operating or using the invention, the theory or formula it rests on, and maps and drawings "containing all particulars". That filed material is what the Department registered.

Drafting claims is still the right thing to do, because a claim set makes the boundary arguable in a dispute and travels well to other countries. Just do not assume a Nepali certificate stands or falls on a claim number — keep the drawings and particulars with it.

What should you check the day it arrives?

Five fields, and then the file behind them. Errors are far cheaper to correct now than during a sale or a dispute years later.

What should you do in the first month?

Treat the certificate's arrival as the start of a short administrative job, not the end of one. Everything below is easier now than in five years.

1. Check the five fields above against your filed application, and raise any error with the Department immediately.
2. Obtain a clean copy of the registered file — the maps, drawings and particulars — and store it with the certificate.
3. Diary the renewal seven years from the Sec. 8 registration date, with a reminder a few months earlier.
4. Make the Sec. 10 deposit of a copy of the design or model with the National Archive.
5. Record who holds the Power of Attorney, so later filings do not stall over authority.
6. Check the brand and the product shape, because neither is covered by this certificate.

Store the originals properly, but do not panic if they are lost. Sec. 24 lets you obtain a copy of a lost registration certificate from the Department on payment of the prescribed fee.

Can a granted patent be cancelled?

Yes, and this surprises people holding a certificate. Sec. 6(2) allows the Department to cancel the registration of a patent already registered, where a Sec. 6(1) circumstance exists.

The grounds are the same ones that would have blocked it: already registered to another person, applicant not the inventor or entitled from them, likely to harm public health, conduct, morality or the national interest, or contrary to prevailing law.

There is a safeguard. The proviso to Sec. 6(2) requires the Department to give the patentee a reasonable opportunity to show cause first, and Sec. 27 allows an appeal to the Appellate Court within 35 days of a Departmental order.

What duty starts the moment you are registered?

An unusual one. Sec. 10 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.

We have not seen that obligation on any other guide to Nepali patents, and it is easy to overlook because it sits between the term clause and the penalty clause rather than in the filing chapter.

Treat it as part of closing out the registration, alongside filing the certificate and setting the renewal diary.

How long is it valid, and how often can you renew?

Sec. 8(1) makes the patentee's title valid for seven years from the date of registration under Sec. 7, unless renewed under Sec. 23B.

Sec. 23B(1) requires the renewal application within 35 days of expiry, in the Schedule 2(d) format. Sec. 23B(2) allows a late renewal within six months on payment of a fine; miss that and the registration "shall automatically" be cancelled.

Sec. 23B(3) then caps the repeats: a patent may be renewed not more than twice for seven years at a time. A Nepali patent is renewable twice and no more, so twenty-one years is the ceiling, after which the invention is public. See how patent renewal works for the mechanics and what a Nepali patent costs for the budget side.

What can you do with the certificate commercially?

Sec. 21D(1) lets the owner transfer ownership of a registered patent, or give written approval for someone else to use it. That is the Act's licensing clause.

It is not a private arrangement. Sec. 21D(2) requires both parties to file a joint application with the Department and pay the prescribed fee, and Sec. 21D(3) lets the Department effect the transfer or grant the approval. The Department then records it under Sec. 21D(5).

So a signed contract alone leaves the register saying something different from the commercial reality. Build the Departmental step into the deal timetable, not after it.

What happens if someone copies the invention?

Sec. 3(2) prohibits copying or using a registered patent in another's name without a transfer of ownership or written permission under Sec. 21D. Sec. 11 backs it with a fine "as per gravity of offense" by order of the Department, together with confiscation of the goods connected with the offence.

Sec. 25 adds a civil layer: where a title holder suffers losses from another person's violation, the Department may order compensation from the offender.

Both routes run through the Department, which is why evidence matters before you complain. Our opposition and enforcement service handles that work, and patent infringement in Nepal explains the practical sequence.

Does a Nepali certificate protect you abroad?

No. Sec. 21B puts it the other way around as well: a patent registered in a foreign country is not valid in Nepal unless registered here.

Nepal is outside the Patent Cooperation Treaty, so there is no international application and no receiving office in the country. Each market needs its own national filing, and filing abroad from Nepal sets out the routes.

Nepal has acceded to the Paris Convention, so a priority claim from an earlier filing may be available where its conditions are met. Treaty membership is published by WIPO and worth re-checking before you plan a filing programme.

Common mistakes: what goes wrong after the certificate arrives?

These are the ones that cost real money, usually years later when the file is needed and incomplete.

• Diarising the renewal from the filing date instead of the Sec. 8 registration date.
• Assuming the twenty-one years can be extended. They cannot.
• Signing a licence without the Sec. 21D(2) joint application, so the register never changes.
• Storing the certificate but not the maps, drawings and particulars that define it.
• Treating the invention title as the scope of protection.
• Skipping the Sec. 10 National Archive deposit.

One more worth naming: a patent protects a mechanism, not a brand. If the product also carries a name and a distinctive shape, those are separate filings — and Nepal is first-to-file, so the delay costs you. Check the name against Nepal's published trademark record, and read design versus patent in Nepal before filing for the shape through our industrial design service.

What does this look like in practice?

A Butwal workshop registers a grain-sorting mechanism and receives its certificate. This is an illustration, not a real case.

Two years on, a distributor asks to manufacture under licence. The workshop signs an agreement and starts shipping. Because no joint application went to the Department under Sec. 21D(2), the register still shows a single owner and no approved user — awkward when a bank asks to see the chain.

Meanwhile a competitor copies the mechanism. The workshop has the certificate but not the filed drawings, so the first job is obtaining copies before it can show what was registered.

In short

Read the certificate with the file behind it, note that your patent lives in the Nepal Gazette rather than the Bulletin, diary twenty-one years from the registration date, and route every licence or transfer through the Department. Counter requirements and fee schedules are published by the Department of Industry, and the consolidated Act sits at the Nepal Law Commission.

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Holding a certificate and unsure what it covers, or planning a licence, renewal or complaint around it? Send us the number and the registration date through our contact page, or start a new filing with our patent registration service.