A country’s intellectual cap/growth can be fairly judged on the number of patents that are filed.
Till 2005, the number of patents that was granted by the Indian Patent Office was 1,911.
And 2006-07?
The number has grown by 8X and stands at 15,262. What’s really interesting to note is the total number of patents that were filled – 35,000.
Though the number is drastically low (~3 in a million file patent, compared to world average of 250), but is surely a good start.
The rise is linked to modernization of the patent and other intellectual-property offices. The Indian government spent more than $35 million in the first phase of the modernization effort, which included setting up integrated intellectual-property offices in four major cities and launching electronic filing of applications.
Another $75 million is to be spent to establish a Trade Marks Registry and Intellectual Property Archives and allied activities. The government has also begun work on a National Institute of Intellectual Property Management to handle training, education, research and think tank functions in intellectual-property rights. -source
The next big question is who is filing patents – Indian companies or MNCs in India?
Lets look at the numbers:
- 358 of total 413 drug patents filed were from MNCs (Novartis, Aventis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Boehringer, Roche and Abbot.]
- I did a study 4 years back, and one of the findings was that close to 80% of software patents were filed by MNCs – mostly driven by companies like TI, IBM , HP and Sun etc. Very few Indian companies were into serious IP business (Moser Baer, ITTIAM etc).
Infact this was also one of the concerns raised at NASSCOM’s product conclave summit, i.e. why is the number of patents filed from Indian companies so less?
- Is is due to lack of R&D budget (+ willingness)?
- Or unknowingness of the benefits of patenting?
- Or a general shyness towards “hoarding” knowledge (a trait that doesn’t gel well with Indians) – this was pointed out by ittiam’s founder?
What’s your opinion?
here is my lawyers remark on my request to patent my algorithm in india
“It is not possible to still patent a software per se in India. The Examiner tends to refuse it based on the fact that it is software and hence is specifically excluded from the purview of patents. The option is to file a copyright for the same, which most of the companies in India are doing at present. However, it is possible to patent a software in the US, but for this, we will have to first file it in India and wait for 6 weeks and then file it in the US as the inventor is an Indian and the law states that any invention by an Indian national has to be first filed in India.”
Ashish,
Good topic,
My personal take on it is that we do not have an IP oriented proven business models existent in India especially in Software/IT related areas. Also for areas like pharma, Indian business models are mainly revolving around producing cheap off ip drugs (my knowledge of this area is very poor though).
Also another thought is that we need to have proven business models in Products first to actually build business models around IP cause it also needs huge investments. Do we have enough proven product business models in cutting edge technologies like software, Internet or Biotech ?
Bottom line :-
Not sure India is ready yet to be IP oriented.
Lalit.
Good discussion.
Maybe most of the IT companies haven’t realized the benefits of patenting – and I guess, there aren’t too many worthwhile ideas/works that can get patented.
akshat – am shocked to read that one cant patent software patents!! that’s raelly stupid
Raj thats what i have been told – have taken many opinions after that and the answer has always been the same – dont bother to do it in india – even if you do manage to find a loophole its not valid globally
My opinion is that we simply do not have cutting-edge innovation happening in India, ignoring a few exceptions. Compare the quality of Ph.D & M.Tech. project theses (even at IITs) to world-class technology institutes and you’d immediately realize this to be true. It’s unreasonable to expect these mediocre engineers to suddenly become geniuses in their fields when they join the industry. It is still the “boring” work that gets sent to India.
The other reason is, software ‘per se’ not being patentable in India. This field brings perhaps the largest number of patents in US: often trivial and obvious “innovations”. However, software not being patentable is definitely a good thing because it allows developers to innovate without fears of prosecution. US was the example cited by EU when it disallowed software patentability in recent years.
Answers i got :
1. Software can’t be patented in india.
2. for US patent, think, have fund and then can think of.
3. Copyrighting is other option to think of but not as strong as patent
-Raxit
Few more stuff Ashish, Only number is not enough.
If you really visit some patent page, you may find it is obvious and why they folks patenting some simple idea ?
how much time it take to get patented in india ?
-Raxit
To me patent reflect a belief that new,progressive and innovative idea or knowledge base is developed .With this definition no of patent filled depend on the amount of innovation done in ecosystem.Since most of the indian comanies are into services we dont see much patnet files by them.
While most of companies in US are product oriented we see more patent filed in US.
Second reason for low patnet filling is awareness.Even in best colleges we dont teach about importance of IP and patent filling process.