The Indian Patent Office ranks 9th in the number of patents filed and 12th in the number of patents granted, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation's (WIPO) latest data.

The total number of patents filed in India amounted to 28,940, according to the Geneva-based organisation’s recently released World Intellectual Property Indicators-2009 report.

This was behind the US (4,56,154), Japan (3,96,291), China (2,45,161), the Republic of Korea (1,72,469), European Patent Office (1,40,763), Germany (60,992), Canada (40,131) and the Russian Federation (39,439).

In terms of the number of patents granted, India (at 7,539) stood behind Japan (1,64,954), the US (1,57,283), the Republic of Korea (1,23,705), China (67,948), European Patent Office (54,699), the Russian Federation (23,028), Canada (18,550), Germany (17,739), France (12,112), Australia (11,236) and Mexico (9,957).

The WIPO-compiled data pertains to 2007.

What is significant about India, however, is not just its overall ranking, but also the fact that a majority of patents filed and granted by it was to non-residents (whether companies or individuals). Thus, of the 28,940 patents filed in the country, as many as 23,626 (82 per cent) were by non-residents. This was unlike China, where 1,53,060 out of the total 2,45,161 (62 per cent) patents filed originated from resident applicants.

Indeed, if one looks at purely resident patent filings, India’s ranking falls to 11th (5,314), behind Japan (3,33,498), the US (2,41,347), China (1,53,060), the Republic of Korea (1,28,701), Germany (47,853), the Russian Federation (27,505), the United Kingdom (17,375), France (14,722), Italy (9,255) and North Korea (6,922).

In terms of resident patent grants, India (at 1,907) stands at the 13th place, behind Japan (1,40,040), the Republic of Korea (91,645), the US (79,527), China (31,945), the Russian Federation (18,431), Germany (12,977), France (9,748), Italy (5,257), North Korea (4,235), Ukraine (2,505), Spain (2,325) and the UK (2,058).

The substantial increase in patent filings by China and the Republic of Korea is a major development of the last 10 years or so.

In fact, for the first time, a Chinese company – Huawei Technologies – topped the list of applicants to have filed patent applications through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2008.

The Chinese telecom equipment major made 1,737 filings under the PCT, which is a WIPO-administered agreement (to which India is also a signatory) that enables patent protection for any invention simultaneously in a number of countries by filing a single ‘international application’ with a single patent office.

Huawei filed more PCT applications last year than Japan’s Panasonic Corporation (1,729), the Netherlands’ Philips (1,551), Japan’s Toyota (1,364), Germany’s Robert Bosch (1,273) and Siemens (1,089), Finland’s Nokia (1,005), Korea’s LG (992), Sweden’s Ericsson (984), Japan’s Fujitsu (983), Qualcomm of the US (907), Japan’s NEC (825) and Sharp (814), Microsoft (805) and Motorola (778) of the US, Sweden’s BASF (721), IMB (664) and 3M (663) of the US, Korea’s Samsung (639) and Dupont of the US (517).

Not a single Indian company features in this list.
                                                                                              Source: Business Line