Software Patents in Nepal: What Is Actually Eligible?
Software patents in Nepal, explained: what the PDTA's process definition means for software, why copyright covers the code, and what a software business files.
A Kathmandu development team ships an app with a genuinely novel matching algorithm. Someone tells them to 'patent the software'. The honest answer is more interesting: in Nepal, software lives mostly under a different right — and the patent question is narrower than founders assume.
This guide explains software patent eligibility in Nepal: what the PDTA's definition of invention means for software, what copyright already covers, and where the patent route genuinely applies.
In short
Software patent eligibility in Nepal is narrow in practice. The PDTA defines patentable inventions as processes, methods of manufacture, operation or transmission, and inventions based on new theories or formulas (Section 2(a)) — a framework weighted toward process and utility inventions, examined case by case by the DOI's technical committee. Software code itself is protected by copyright under the Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) from creation. The practical stack for a Nepalese software business: copyright the code, trademark the name and logo, keep the genuinely novel process questions for a patentability opinion.
The legal starting points: two statutes, two rights
Nepalese law splits software's protection at the source. The Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) protects original code as a literary-type work automatically from creation — no filing required — and voluntary registration with the Copyright Registrar's Office is available as ownership evidence. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act, 2022 (1965) protects inventions: processes, methods of manufacture, operation or transmission, and theory- or formula-based inventions under Section 2(a).
The overlap is where confusion lives. Code is copyright. The *method the code implements* is the only part of software that could ever be patent territory — and Section 2(a)'s process-and-method framing, applied by the DOI's technical committee, is what decides it.
How Nepalese patent law treats software-implemented inventions
Section 2(a) is functional, not categorical: it does not list excluded subject matter the way modern statutes do, and it does not name computer programs at all. What it does is define invention by how something works — a method, a process, an operation, a transmission, a new theory or formula.
In practice this cuts two ways. A software-implemented invention that genuinely solves a technical problem by a new method — a novel transmission technique, a new manufacturing control process — can be argued within the definition, and the DOI's technical committee examines the disclosure on its merits. An application that merely wraps an ordinary business method or a mathematical idea in code has little to point to under a definition built on process and operation. Nepalese practice here is still forming; each grant is case-specific, which is why a patentability opinion comes before any filing spend.
What Nepalese software businesses actually protect
Class note: Nepal's single-class rule means an app business typically files Class 9 (recorded software) and Class 42 (development and SaaS-style services) as separate applications.
| Asset | Right | How |
|---|---|---|
| Source code, app, platform | Copyright (automatic; registration optional) | Copyright Registrar's Office registration as evidence |
| Product name, logo | Trademark | Schedule 1(c) filing at the DOI, per class (9, 42 typically) |
| Genuinely novel technical process | Patent (case-dependent) | Patentability opinion, then Schedule 1(a) if arguable |
| Roadmaps, algorithms, datasets | Trade secret (contract-based today) | NDAs, access controls, employee clauses |
The trade-secret layer is real in software
Much of what founders want to 'patent' is better protected by not disclosing it. Nepal has no standalone trade-secret statute today — protection runs through contract: NDAs with staff and vendors, confidentiality clauses, access controls. The draft Industrial Property Bill 2082 would add statutory trade-secret protection (proposed; not yet law), bringing Nepal toward the TRIPS Article 39 standard.
For algorithms and training data, the choice is deliberate: file a patent and publish the method in the specification, or keep it secret behind contracts and controls. A method that competitors could not reconstruct from the product is often worth more as a secret; one they will reverse-engineer in a month may justify the patent question.
If you do file: the disclosure decides it
A patent application for a software-implemented process lives or dies on the specification: the method described step by step, the technical problem stated, the disclosure complete enough that a person in the field could reproduce it. Thin applications that withhold the operative method risk refusal — or a patent vulnerable to challenge later.
Foreign applicants file through a local agent with a notarised POA and Nepali translation; the Paris Convention's 12-month priority applies where a first filing exists abroad. And remember the term arithmetic before investing: 7 years from registration, renewable twice — a 21-year ceiling at current law, with the proposed Bill 2082 expected to move Nepal toward TRIPS-aligned terms.
The practical answer for founders
For most Nepalese software businesses the answer is: copyright the code now, trademark the name before launch, protect the secrets by contract, and spend on a patentability opinion only when the invention is a genuine technical method. That stack costs a fraction of a patent program and covers what software businesses are actually attacked on — copied code, copied names, poached staff.
When the patent route is real, file early and file complete: first-to-file applies to patents as much as to trademarks, and the disclosure on filing day is the one that counts.
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This article is general information, not legal advice.