Patent filings boom, startups and universities lead the charge

In the recent annual report released by the Intellectual Property Office for the year 2022-2023, several interesting stats and facts can be picked up by IP innovators, educational institutions, companies, startups and SMEs. The total filing of all IPRs stood at 601789, an increase of 5.94 per cent in the filings from the previous year.

The total number of patents filed in the year 2022-2023 stood at 82811, which is 24.6 per cent more than last year’s numbers. The percentage of Indian applicant filing have gone up to 52.59 per cent for this year, which is very encouraging to see. Tamil Nadu occupied the first position in patent filings followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Telangana stood at sixth position with 2438 patents being filed.

While the major share of patent filings has been by the educational institutions followed by individual innovators then companies and foreign entities.

The number of patents filed by startups stood at 2016 and by SMEs at 1329. The total number of trademarks filed stood at 4,66,580, designs at 22,698, copyrights at 29,466 GIs at 211 and the numbers of semiconductor IC layout by far 23 the highest till date is a positive outcome for the research being done in this space.

For the first time four private universities led by Lovely Professional University topped the charts in patent filings for educational institutions with IITs (cumulative) getting rank five in the country. Meanwhile, in the realm of scientific and research development organizations, IITs have claimed the top spot with 803 patents, followed by CSIR at fourth position and IISc at tenth.

Subhajit Saha, Head of IPR & Legal, Resolute Group says the trends are interesting to see how the research and patent driven innovations are catching up with private universities and scientific institutions. He also mentioned that not a single educational university neither institution from Telangana has figured in the top 10 rankings. This shows we have a long way to go.

Major pharma companies from Telangana, Dr Reddy’s, MSN and NATCO figured in the top 10 ranking for PCT filing application form patent filing in international countries. TVS Motors, CSIR and Hindustan Petroleum were the top 3 PCT filers from Indian applicants.

With 1.19 lakhs startups registered and 3 crores plus MSME registered in the MSME Udyam the patent numbers of 2016 and 1329 stands very low and there is huge scope for increased filings in the coming days. Most interesting was to see TCS in rank 3 for patent filings in IT sector behind Lovely Professional University and Jain University.

Telangana stood at thirteenth position in design filings with 394 applications as against rank 1 Maharashtra with 3683 designs filed. Sabyasachi Calcutta LLP stood number 1 in the ranking for design by Indian applicants with 916 designs being filed followed by Chitakara university, Relaxo footwear, Havells India and Hero Moto Corp Group.

Telangana stood ninth in trademark filings for the year 2022-23 with 17817 trademarks filed against rank 1 Maharashtra at 85539 trademarks. There is a huge scope to cross 50,000 trademarks by next year for Telangana as mentioned by Saha with new business and services coming into Telangana.

To conclude the IP story for India is on a fast track and will become more robust by the days. With 593 patent examiners in 13 streams, the patent office is doing its best for faster grants and in the coming days will double the number of payment examiners. India with a vibrant SMEs and startups ecosystem has a huge potential to cross 10 lakh IPR filings by 2026.