An unimaginable 272,600 worldwide patent purposes had been filed in 2023, in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization. That was, nevertheless, a slight lower of slightly below 2 per cent from 2022. China and the US stay the leaders, however they, together with Japan and Germany, noticed a decline in filings.

India, although, is a special story. Among the highest 15 nations, India’s patent purposes grew the quickest, at almost 45 per cent, effectively above Turkey’s 8.5 per cent, the second-largest progress. Apart from these two, South Korea is the one different nation to report year-on-year progress for 3 consecutive years.

Clearly, India is witnessing a formidable surge in patent filings. According to its patent and trademark body, India filed some 82,811 patent purposes in 2022-23, up by 25 per cent on the earlier yr and by greater than 60 per cent over 5 years. There has additionally been a major improve within the variety of patents granted, from 15,283 in 2018-19 to 34,134 in 2022-23. However, there may be concern about India’s processing time of 4.3 years – in contrast with 1.4 years in China and two years within the US – on account of a shortage of manpower.

Patent purposes are sometimes taken as a proxy for a nation’s scientific and technological progress. For India, which aspires to be counted as a terrific energy, the patent rush is extraordinarily encouraging. However, one other extra vital however comparatively uncared for a part of the story is about patent high quality.

How do you consider this? There are solely a few studies that have assessed the value of Indian patents. This wants to alter. Without this data, it’s troublesome to make dependable estimates. But what does “quality” imply on this context? It is taken into account a puzzle by some, and measuring it’s notoriously sophisticated and imprecise.

What is attention-grabbing and maybe not altogether stunning is that India’s story concerning patent purposes seems to be following the trail that China has already taken. China’s huge progress within the variety of purposes is commonly described as a “great leap forward in patenting”. However, whereas it has overtaken the US in patent technology, a recent study exhibits that China’s innovation – measured when it comes to patents – is “large in scale but low in productivity”.

In sum, if the standard of Indian patents does lag behind quantity, there may be nothing notably uncommon about that for a growing nation. And, both approach, there are causes for India to have a good time its fast-rising variety of patent purposes. The particulars reveal different accomplishments, two of that are notably noteworthy.

Official figures from India show that the variety of Indian purposes overtook the variety of international purposes, primarily by international firms in India. Second, a growing number of patent applications are being filed by India’s universities, together with non-public establishments. Indeed, Lovely Professional University, Jain University and Galgotias University are submitting extra patents than well-known public establishments, comparable to a number of Indian Institutes of Science and Indian Institutes of Technology.

India’s rising variety of patent numbers signifies that the nation is now very a lot within the world race. This is largely because of the current initiatives taken by the Indian authorities, which embody procedural measures to enhance effectivity and cut back patent processing time. Another easy and efficient initiative has been to lift consciousness about mental property issues throughout the nation, together with at colleges and faculties.

Government officers have repeatedly inspired and emphasised the significance of innovation. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it in January 2022: “Let us innovate for India, innovate from India.” Indians – and Indian universities, particularly – appear to be responding to this name.

Pushkar is director of The International Centre Goa.