Bilateral trade deals should facilitate international cognisance for Indian patents: Experts

Bengaluru: India has seen a surge in patent filings in recent years. In 2022 77,068 patents were filed in the country, marking a 31.6% rise over the previous year. This, according to the World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report of November last year, was higher than any other country. In the current fiscal, as many as 41,010 patents were filed until November. While this progress is commendable, India has a lot of catching up to do and gaining international platform for its patents is a critical challenge. People operating in the ecosystem feel that the government support that has helped push the envelope so far, needs to go an extra mile, when negotiating bilateral trade agreements.

India’s position in the global race for patents is far behind the high-fliers such as China, where 16.2 lakh new patent applications were filed in 2022, the US which saw 5.9 lakh applications that year or Japan with 2.9 lakh applications.

The country’s progress this far in patent filings can be attributed to increased support and growing awareness about protecting one’s intellectual property (IP), not just for innovators but also investors who are realising the importance of a patent portfolio.

“Given how the Indian economy is emerging, there is huge scope for the patent regime to grow. Currently, not too many companies in India value patents and appreciate how important they can be. IP is still seen as an expense and not an investment. There needs to be a fundamental shift in the mindset of companies to start realising that patents can be a good revenue stream after a few years,” according to Bharadwaj Jaishankar, Intellectual Property Partner at Induslaw.

Filing for a patent costs a minimum of Rs 2 lakh in India, which could go up considerably depending on the attorney, while the process of granting the rights can take at least a year.

However, under the government’s Startup India initiative, startups since 2016 have been provided access to the fast-track mechanism and an 80% rebate in filing of patents, which could have aided the accelerated patenting activity in recent years. There is also a push to expedite the disposal of applications and clear out the back log, which could explain the jump noted in 2022. The patent office has hired more examiners in recent years and the allocation for the intellectual property ecosystem, in the Union Budget last year was raised by 15% to Rs 328.981 crore, pointed out Himanshu Deora, Partner, King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates and Attorneys.

“Although, this push to dispose of applications can have a negative impact on the quality of patent grants to some extent. The hiring, too, is not proportionate to numbers of new filings, which could compromise quality further,” he warned.

Filing for patents in other countries, especially the US and Europe can be even more expensive, where many aspire to take their innovations. While the bilateral treaties India is in the process of signing with other major economies may aid the process, Deora believes a separate scheme of subsidy for foreign filings can be introduced. This sentiment was echoed by multiple startups with patented technologies that DH spoke to.

“We are seeing an acceleration in trade deals being signed by India with mature markets. Once these deals are signed, trademark, copyright and IPs are part of them. It will help innovators to file in India and get the patent replicated in other countries. For the system to become practical and smooth, it will take time, but we should enable this future,” said Amit Jaju, Senior Managing Director at Ankura Consulting.

While there are bottlenecks in the system with the costly and resource intensive process, experts have an overall positive outlook on India's standing in the global patenting ecosystem.

“People now want to work on maturing their ideas which leads to more filings. The pace at which technology is evolving...there are so many white spaces where people can hunt for ideas. There is visible improvement in governance, which is expected to only get better,” said Pavan Nanjundaiah, Head of Studio at data science firm Tredence.