Andhra Pradesh ranks second in growth of patent filing

Visakhapatnam In an achievement which will further give a push to spread of innovation culture, Andhra Pradesh has stood second in growth of patent filing.

The Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Geographical Indications, Government of India released the Intellectual Property India Annual Report for 2019-2020 on Thursday. It compiles and presents all the Intellectual Property (IP) generated and applications filed seeking protection in India.

Former CMD of National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) Prof. H. Purushottam, who is DPIIT IPR Chair at Andhra University, told Bizz Buzz on Friday that this is a significant development and described how the university has taken the initiative to inculcate awareness among the students by teaching them on IPR. Prof. Purushotham, who is also the AP State IPR Nodal Officer said the university has prepared a roadmap to position AP among the top five States in the next three years.

According to the just released annual report, 56,267 patent applications were filed in 2019-20 compared to 50,659 in 2018-19. The growth rate in overall patent filing was about 11 percent. Out of the total patent applications filed 37 percent were Indian applicants and 63 percent were foreign applicants.

Compared to last year there was about 3.4 percent increase in patent filings by Indian nationals, which is considered a good sign.

The most exciting thing is that the growth rate in filing patent applications from Andhra Pradesh--about 51 percent over the last year. AP filed 484 patents in 2019-20 compared to 321 in 2018-19 and maintained its 11th position in the country. Punjab registered the highest growth rate of 117 percent with filing of 1435 patent applications in 2019-20 occupying fifth position in the country.

The top three States in filing patent applications were Maharashtra (4741), Tamil Nādu (3546) and Karnataka (2230) and their patent filing growth rates are 13, 49 and 4 percent respectively.

Prof. PVGD Prasad Reddy, Vice Chancellor of Andhra University said he is very happy that the AP has registered an impressive 51 percent growth in patent filings and stood at second position in the country which is more than 4.6 times the national average growth of 11 percent. He attributed the achievement to aggressive awareness programs carried out by Andhra University as a State IPR Nodal Agency during the last one and half years.

Prof. V. Krishna Mohan, Officer on Special Duty complemented the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights of Andhra University for its various initiatives to create IPR awareness among students and faculty by conducting a large number of training programs, webinars and introducing IPR as a mandatory credit course in UG and PG courses.

He said Andhra University IPR Policy is being adopted as a State IPR Policy, facilitating filing of IP applications and IP commercialisation. He hoped that by adopting the IPR policy across all universities in the State will enable the State to reach a leadership position in the future.