Telangana ranks 6th in patent filings

Over 1,724 patent applications were filed from Telangana in 2021-22 against 1,643 applications in 2020-21. Similarly, 934 applications were submitted from AP in 2021-22 when compared to 708 applications in a year-ago period. Overall, 66,440 patents have been filed by startups and companies across India in 2021-22 while 58,503 were filed in the previous year

Hyderabad: Telangana ranked sixth, while Andhra Pradesh ranked 10th out of the top 20 States in fling patents applications other forms of IPRs, as per the latest Intellectual Property (IP) India annual report 2021-22 released by Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Geographic Indications under Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

According to the report, over 1,724 patent applications were filed from Telangana in 2021-22 against 1,643 applications in 2020-21. Similarly, 934 applications were submitted from AP in 2021-22 when compared to 708 applications in a year-ago period. Overall, about 66,440 patents have been filed by startups and companies across India in 2021-22 while 58,503 were filed in the previous year.

Telangana has been doing phenomenally well in investments and innovations. But, there is a need to see how these can generate more IPs from the State. Being a hub for startups and having rich base of R&D, pharma, lifesciences, and several emerging technologies, the number of patents filed in the State should be larger over coming years.

Subhajit Saha, Head of Legal & IPR at Resolute Group of Companies, said: “The patent filing fee has been reduced to 75 per cent for all educational institutions along with MSMEs, startups, and individuals. This is a welcome move to file more patents. Industrial design filings over the last 2-3 years have really picked up. Around 22,000 applications have been filed in 2021-2022.”

He was listed as representative in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) designs database for more than 180 design applications to his credit for the highest filings of industrial designs in Telangana. He has been involved in filing and registration of industrial designs for MSMEs, startups, academia, and individual inventors. The designs range from agriculture implements to machine tools.

Subhajit further said that Telangana rank has slipped to sixth position for patent filings in the country, 13th position for designs and ninth position for trademark filings. With a huge number of startups and entrepreneurial ecosystem, he believes that the State has immense potential to be among the top three States in all the three aspects of IP registrations by 2025. He mentioned that industrial designs are the cheapest and the fastest forms of IP to be granted in today’s date by the Indian Patent office. Insitutions like Sanskriti College and Chandigarh University have filed 700+ patents in the year. So, he feels that there is a huge opportunity for the engineering colleges from Telangana to come in the top 10 filings for designs in the coming year.

Subhajit opined that there is a need for a strong IP culture in universities and colleges of the State to bring in the change in the mindset to file good IPs and leverage them for competitiveness.