Protecting Software and Tech Inventions in Nepal: Copyright vs. Patent
How Nepalese law protects software: copyright for code under the Copyright Act, the narrow patent path for technical inventions, and the layered strategy for tech products.
Nepal's software-protection landscape is cleaner than most founders expect: code is copyright, full stop — protected automatically under the Copyright Act, no registration required. Patents enter only where the software is the implementation of a technical invention.
This guide maps the two regimes, the boundary between them, and the layered strategy tech products actually need — brand, code, and (sometimes) invention.
In short
Software in Nepal is protected by copyright under the Copyright Act, 2059 (2002): original code (source and object) is protected automatically from creation, without registration, including moral and economic rights — consistent with Berne membership. Patents reach software only where it implements a technical invention meeting the PDTA's novelty, inventive-substance and industrial-application tests; software as such and business methods are not patentable. The layered strategy for tech products: copyright over code (plus contracts and access control), trademarks over brand and product names (the commercial workhorse), trade-dress/design where UI or hardware appearance matters, and patent filings only for genuine technical inventions.
Copyright: the default and the workhorse
Under the Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) — and consistent with Nepal's Berne Convention membership — original software is protected as a literary work automatically, from the moment of creation, in both source and object form. No registration, no filing, no notice. The rights are the standard bundle: reproduction, distribution, adaptation, communication to the public, plus moral rights for the author.
Copyright's limits shape its role: it protects the expression (the code as written), not the ideas, algorithms or functionality behind it. A competitor who independently writes code achieving the same result does not infringe — which is why copyright is the workhorse, not the fortress.
- Automatic protection from creation — no registration needed
- Covers source and object code; infringement = copying
- Protects expression, not function — independent re-creation is lawful
Patents: the narrow technical door
The PDTA's patent system reaches software through the technical invention it implements: a process, system or device with a technical effect, meeting novelty, inventive substance and industrial application. What stays outside: software as such, algorithms, and business methods — the exclusions and boundary cases are covered in our subject-matter guide.
For the tech companies where the door is real — hardware-embedded systems, signal processing, industrial control, medtech — the Nepalese patent's economics apply: 7+7+7 term, modest fees, a working expectation, and the direct-filing discipline (no PCT route). File where the invention will be worked in Nepal; protect the rest of the portfolio abroad where the term is longer.
- Patent the technical invention, not the code
- Business methods and software-as-such: not patentable
- 7+7+7 term — file where the invention is worked in Nepal
The layered strategy for a tech product
Real products are protected in layers, each doing the job its instrument does best:
Brand layer: trademarks
Product and company names, logos, and the app/packaging identity — registered in the classes that match the offering (software goods in class 9, SaaS in 42, retail in 35). The commercial workhorse: what customers ask for and competitors copy.
Code layer: copyright + contracts
Copyright arises automatically; the practice is contracts and control — employment and contractor IP-assignment clauses, licence terms, access restriction, and dated repositories that prove authorship.
Interface layer: design and trade dress
Distinctive UI or device appearance can be registered as an industrial design where novelty exists; app icons and layout elements can function as marks with use.
Invention layer: patents, selectively
Only for genuine technical inventions — assessed against the subject-matter gates before any fee is paid.
Employment and founder IP: the clause that decides ownership
The most common tech-IP failure in Nepal is not theft — it is ownership ambiguity: code written by a contractor without an assignment, a co-founder who left before the company registered the brand, an employee's side project blurring into the product. The fixes are contractual and cheap: written IP-assignment clauses in every employment and contractor agreement, founder IP assignments executed at incorporation, and a register of who created what, when, under which agreement. The copyright exists automatically; owning it is a paperwork discipline.
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IP Watch monitors new trademark publications in Nepal and alerts you to potentially conflicting marks — with the context needed to review them.
This article is general information, not legal advice.