Design Novelty and the Grace Period Question in Nepal: Disclose First or File First?
Design novelty and the grace period question in Nepal: what the DOI checks, why disclosure still costs you, and the file-first rule that protects product looks.
You showed the new product look at a Kathmandu trade fair, or the catalogue went to print, or a customer photo is already circulating — and now the design registration question arrives with the disclosure already behind you.
Businesses trained on other IP systems ask about a grace period: the statutory window that forgives a designer's own disclosure. Here is how the question actually plays in Nepal, and why the practical answer rarely depends on it.
In short
The design novelty grace period question in Nepal resolves practically: the Section 14 refusal grounds cover earlier registration, public morality, national interest and prestige — no patent-style prior-art search — so a disclosed design may still register, but copying and a copycat's earlier filing remain the real exposures. The practitioner's rule is to file before disclosing, every time.
The design novelty grace period: what the check screens
An industrial design in Nepal is filed on Schedule 1(b) with four sets of representations, and the Department's examination runs against the narrow Section 14 grounds: the design is already registered by another, it offends public morality or national interest, or it hurts the prestige of a person, institution or the nation. There is no inventive-step analysis and no prior-art search comparable to patents.
The design novelty grace period question therefore lands differently here than in systems that search everything published before filing. The Department's screen will not hunt down last month's exhibition photographs — but that is a statement about examination, not about risk.
Where the disclosure risk actually bites
Three exposures follow a public disclosure, and none of them is cured by registering afterwards:
- Copying, immediately: a product look revealed to the market can be reproduced the day it ships; the design right you file afterwards does not un-copy it
- Positional loss on the register: Nepal's design register is first-to-file in effect — a copycat who files their own look first holds the earlier registration, and Section 14's first ground (already registered by another) then blocks yours
- Weakened enforcement: proving your own earlier rights against a registered copycat costs far more than the NPR 1,000 application and NPR 7,000 registration fee that would have prevented it
The exhibition problem, specifically
Trade fairs and expos in Kathmandu are where Nepali product businesses meet buyers — and where designs meet the market first. Treat any fair appearance as a disclosure event: if the look is worth protecting, the Schedule 1(b) filing should be in before the stand is booked, not after the first customer photograph. Where the design applies to a range of products, each variant needs to be visible in representations — budget one filing per distinct look rather than discovering the gap after launch.
A decision rule for disclosed designs
If disclosure already happened, the honest assessment has three questions. Has the look been copied yet? Is anyone else plausibly positioned to file it? And does the design still have commercial life worth NPR 8,000 in government fees and years of renewals? The answers sort into a decision table:
| Situation | Recommended move |
|---|---|
| Already copied in the market | File immediately — the register position is still winnable |
| A copycat filing is plausible | File now; the first-to-file register rewards speed |
| Look commercially exhausted | Deliberate lapse; redirect effort to the brand mark |
| Family of distinct variants | One filing per distinct look, before any further disclosure |
Filing-first discipline, and what it costs
The economics push the same way. A design registration is one of the fastest, cheapest IP rights in Nepal — NPR 1,000 to apply, NPR 7,000 to register, weeks-to-months timeline — and it runs 5 years from registration, renewable twice for 5 years each under Section 23B (a 15-year ceiling). Against that, the design novelty question stops being about statutory grace and becomes a calendar habit: file, then show. Registration gives protection from the register outward; disclosure gives the market everything it needs.
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This article is general information, not legal advice.