IT Company IP in Nepal: The Protection Stack From Code to Brand
IT company IP in Nepal, asset by asset: copyright for code, trademarks for names, the patent question, trade secrets, and the contracts that hold it together.
A Nepali IT company's balance sheet is mostly invisible: the codebase, the product names, the client relationships, the architecture in the team's heads. The company's real assets never appeared on a form — and in a dispute, an acquisition or a funding round, invisible assets are the ones that vanish.
This guide maps IT company IP in Nepal asset by asset: what each right covers, what it costs, and the two contracts that hold the whole stack together.
In short
IT company IP in Nepal stacks four rights around one codebase: copyright protects the software itself (automatic under the Copyright Act 2059, with voluntary registration as evidence), trademarks protect product and company names (Class 9 and Class 42, one application per class at the DOI), patents protect only the narrow slice of technical inventions Nepal's system allows, and trade secrets — contract-based today — carry everything confidential. The two documents that decide most outcomes: employee IP assignments and NDAs.
Copyright: the code's first line of defence
Software is protected by copyright in Nepal from the moment it is written — the source code, the UI, the documentation — with no registration required for the right itself. Voluntary registration at the Copyright Registrar's Office earns its fee for the crown jewels: the core codebase and platform assets, where a dated government record becomes the diligence artefact investors and acquirers ask for. The catch is ownership, not protection: Nepal has no work-for-hire doctrine, so every developer owns what they write until a written assignment says otherwise. A codebase built without assignments is a company asset in name only.
| Asset | Right in Nepal | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Source code, UI, docs | Copyright — automatic | Assignments on file; register the core codebase |
| Product / company name, logo | Trademark (Class 9, 42) | Clear, then file per class at the DOI |
| Genuinely technical invention | Patent (narrowly available) | Assess eligibility before spending |
| Architecture, algorithms, client data | Trade secret — contract-based | NDAs, access controls, documentation |
| Distinctive icons and UI visuals | Copyright; design possible | Assignments; design filing for product looks |
IT company IP in Nepal starts with the names the market buys
The market cannot see your code; it sees the name. Nepali software companies file Class 9 (recorded software, app media) and Class 42 (development and SaaS-style services) — one application per class under Section 18A, at NPR 1,000 filing and NPR 5,000 registration each, renewable every 7 years at NPR 3,500. Clearance comes first: screen the product name against the DOI's published records, phonetic variants and Devanagari forms included, because a renamed product after launch costs multiples of the search that would have caught the conflict.
The patent question, answered honestly
Nepal's patent system protects process and method inventions under the PDTA's functional definition, but the patentable slice of a typical IT company's work is narrow, and software-as-such sits closer to copyright's territory. The honest sequence for a genuinely technical invention: assess patentable subject matter first, document the invention (lab-notebook discipline), and only then spend on filing — NPR 1,000 to apply, with a 7-year term renewable twice to a 21-year ceiling. Most IT companies get more commercial value from the trade-secret route for algorithms and architecture: contract-based in Nepal today, with statutory trade-secret protection proposed in the Industrial Property Bill aligned with TRIPS.
The two contracts that decide most disputes
Every IT company IP failure traces to paperwork that was never signed. The employee IP assignment — present-tense transfer of works created in scope of employment and business-related personal works, with cooperation duties that survive departure — converts the author-first default into company ownership. The NDA defines what is confidential before access is granted, covering architecture discussions, client data and the internal tooling that makes the product work. Both apply with even more force to contractors and agencies, whose default ownership of commissioned work is total: assignment-first instruments, executed at signature, for every external build.
A founder's 90-day sequence
For an IT company starting its IP housekeeping: inventory the codebase and brand assets and who created each; execute retroactive assignments where gaps exist — including departed developers; clear and file the core product classes; register the codebase that diligence will ask about; and put NDAs over every relationship that touches confidential material. None of it is expensive by IT-industry standards. All of it is exactly what the first investor, acquirer or enterprise client will inspect.
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This article is general information, not legal advice.