A decade ago in i.e. 2009, while China had filed 7,946 patent applications, India had made up for only 761. This gap had been widening, despite improvement shown by New Delhi in recent years.
Huawei, Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung and Qualcomm filed more international patent applications each than the whole of India in 2019, showed the latest data compiled by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This reflects poorly on New Delhi’s innovation prowess and brings to the fore, yet again, its markedly poor spending on research and development (R&D).
“India filed only 2,053 patents applications in 2019, accounting for fewer than 1% of the global filings (see chart). In contrast, Huawei alone filed 4,411 applications, followed by Mitsubishi Electric (2,661), Samsung (2,334) and Qualcomm (2,127).
Not just patents, India fares poorly in applying for trademarks as well, having made up for just 0.7% of global filings in 2019, the WIPO data showed. In industrial designs, the country is nearly absent, having filed for only three designs, against 21,807 globally.” (Source : financial express)
As for patents, none of the Indian companies made it to the list of top 50 filers globally, while as many as 13 Chinese companies featured in it – with four among the top ten. Interestingly, the list of corporations with substantial patent filings is dominated by firms in the network product space, where Indian companies don’t yet have a meaningful presence.
Last week, virtually addressing an event organised by NGO Disha Bharat, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman exhorted more and more Indian entities to realise the growing importance of patents and filing applications.
