The Patent Term in Nepal: Filing, Grant, and Maintenance Fees
How long a Nepalese patent lasts and what it costs to keep: the 7+7+7 structure behind the 21-year ceiling, grant-stage fees, annual maintenance, and the windows that keep it alive.
Patent-life arithmetic in Nepal is a structure, not a single number: 7 years on grant, renewed at most twice for 7 years each — 21 years, hard ceiling. Every stage has its own fee, its own window, and its own way of lapsing.
This guide assembles the whole financial and procedural life of a Nepalese patent — filing, grant, and every maintenance payment between registration and year 21.
In short
A Nepalese patent runs 7 years from registration and is renewable at most twice for 7 years each — 21 years maximum under the PDTA. Costs: NPR 1,000 application fee at filing, NPR 7,000 registration fee at grant (current practice), then annual maintenance inside each renewal term — NPR 5,000/year for years 7–14 and NPR 7,500/year for years 14–21 — filed on Schedule 2(d) within 35 days of each expiry, with a 6-month grace period carrying a NPR 1,000 fine. Beyond grace, cancellation is automatic and permanent: the published specification makes refiling impossible.
Stage one: filing to grant
The journey starts with the Schedule 1(a) application and the NPR 1,000 filing fee, submitted at the Department of Industry with the specification, claims, drawings and — for foreign applicants — notarised POA and corporate papers. Examination follows on the papers, with technical input where the invention demands it; the Department publishes and registers successful applications, and the NPR 7,000 registration fee (current practice) completes the grant stage.
Timelines are measured in months, not weeks, and correspondence gaps are the usual delay — respond to Departmental queries promptly, through the agent of record. The grant certificate is dated, and that date, not the filing date, starts the 7-year term — a point that trips up applicants used to jurisdictions where protection runs from filing.
- Filing: Schedule 1(a) + NPR 1,000 (current practice)
- Registration at grant: NPR 7,000 (current practice)
- The 7-year term runs from registration — not filing
Legal references
- Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act, 2022 (1965) — English translation (PDF) — WIPO Lex
- Department of Industry — Industrial Property Section — Government of Nepal
Stage two and three: the two renewals
At year 7 the first renewal falls due — within 35 days of expiry, on Schedule 2(d), opening the second term; at year 14 the second and final renewal opens the third. Maintenance is paid annually inside each term: NPR 5,000 per year across years 7–14, NPR 7,500 per year across years 14–21.
Each renewal event carries the familiar safety net: a 6-month grace period with the NPR 1,000 fine (NPR 6,000 and NPR 8,500 per year respectively in the grace periods, in current practice). Beyond grace there is nothing — cancellation is automatic, and because the specification published at grant is prior art against its own refiling, a lapsed patent is unrecoverable in substance as well as form.
| Stage | When | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Application (Schedule 1(a)) | Filing | NPR 1,000 |
| Registration | At grant | NPR 7,000 |
| Term 1 | Years 0–7 | — |
| First renewal + annual maintenance | Year 7 (+35 days; 6-month grace) | NPR 5,000/year (years 7–14) |
| Second (final) renewal + maintenance | Year 14 (+35 days; 6-month grace) | NPR 7,500/year (years 14–21) |
| Ceiling | Year 21 | Invention enters the public domain |
The strategy inside the arithmetic
The 21-year ceiling and the annual-fee structure turn renewal into an annual maintain-or-lapse decision. The right question each year is commercial, not sentimental: is the invention being worked — made, sold, licensed, imported under the patent, or held defensively? While the answer is yes, the fee is cheap exclusivity. When the answer turns no, a deliberate, documented lapse is sound portfolio management.
Two planning notes for the record. Licensing and sale transactions should be timed with renewal windows — a patent in its final term is priced differently from one with two terms of life left. And foreign-owned patents run renewals through the local agent under the POA on file; keep that mandate current, because an agent transition at renewal time is how good patents die.
- Maintain while the invention is worked; lapse deliberately when it is not
- Time deals against the renewal calendar
- Keep the agent POA current — renewals route through it
Legal references
Why the term is short — and what is coming
Nepal's 7+7+7 structure is a product of its LDC-era statute: the 1965 Act predates TRIPS and its 20-year international norm, and the shorter term reflects the domestic policy balance at the time. The draft Industrial Property Bill proposes to modernise the framework — with longer, TRIPS-aligned terms among the changes under discussion — but until it is enacted, every planning decision should assume the current structure.
For now, the practical rule stands: a Nepalese patent is a decade-and-a-half to two-decade asset at best, financed in annual instalments, with no revival after a lapse. Inventors who plan the full 21 years from day one — fees diarised, working decisions scheduled — get everything the system offers. Those who discover the calendar at year 7 usually get less.
Legal references
- Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act, 2022 (1965) — English translation (PDF) — WIPO Lex
- Department of Industry — Industrial Property Section — Government of Nepal
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This article is general information, not legal advice.