New Delhi Patent filings in India increased by 30% over the past five years, while the number of patents granted nearly tripled during the same period, showed the Economic Survey 2021-22 released on Monday.
The survey said that 58,502 patent applications were filed in 2020-21 – up from 45,444 in 2016-17. In comparison, 39,400 patents were filed in 2010-11. Similarly, 28,391 patents were granted in India in 2020-21, up from 9,847 in 2016-17 and 7,509 in 2010-11.
The increase in patent filings raised India’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index from 81 in 2015-16 to 46 in 2021. It also coincides with the ongoing startup boom in India.
Startups recognized under the Startup India program get up to 80% discount on patent filing and 50% discount on trademark filing, in an effort to encourage innovation.
Educational institutions and technology companies are also active in India along with research and development (R&D) centers. For example, earlier this month, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur said it filed 107 intellectual property rights (IPRs) in 2021, taking its total number of IPRs to 810.
Samsung has filed 7,500 patents globally from India, of which 3,500 were filed in India in the past 10 years, Aloknath Dey, chief technology officer (CTO), Samsung Research Institute, told Mint in November 2021.
To be sure, the survey reported that the number of patents granted in India is a fraction of that of China, the US, Japan and South Korea. Although patents filed in India have increased significantly, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the number is still a fraction of the 530,000 patents granted in China and 352,000 patents granted in the US, according to the survey.
It also noted that 179,000 patents were granted in Japan in 2021 and 135,000 in South Korea by 2020, respectively.
The survey attributed this disparity to low spending on research and development (R&D) in India, which accounted for 0.7% of the country’s GDP in 2020. Procedural delays and complexity are some of the other factors that have deterred many from filing patents in India.
According to the survey, the average time taken for final call on grant of patent in India in 2020 was 42 months, up from 52 months in 2019 and 64 months in 2017.
In comparison, the average pendency for a patent in the US was 20.8 months, while it was 20 months in China. It was even lower in South Korea and Japan—15.8 months and 15 months, respectively.
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