Patents zoom, but where is the innovation?

India is among the top patent filers globally, but it has yet to make its mark in any breakthrough technologies

- LATHA JISHNU

IT WAS party time for India in November when the "World Intellectual Property Indicators 2023" (WIPI) report was released. India was a star performer in the report compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which aggregates statistics culled from around 150 intellectual property offices worldwide to map global patenting activity. According to WIPI, this activity soared to record levels in 2022, fuelled by the substantial rise in patent filings by residents of China and India.

News of this kind invariably fans nationalist tendencies these days, and the media went to town on it, although these are figures for just applications and not grant of patents. Coming up for special mention was the WIPI observation that patent applications in India grew by 31.6 per cent in 2022, "extending an 11-year run of growth unmatched by any other country among the top 10 filers". Quite a feat, it would appear, when you look at the leading group. The top filers these are the countries with the highest numbers of patent filings-are China, the US, Japan, Republic of Korea and Germany, followed by France, India, the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Figures hide as much as they reveal; it all depends on the context and how much one wants to understand the big picture. Spectacular increases in percentages are possible on a low base figure, but not if one is already far ahead in the race. China is the world's largest patent holder, and it continues to file nearly half of all global patent applications.

With close to 1.6 million applications last year, it managed to notch up an increase of just 3.1 per cent in 2022. China was followed by the US with 505,539 applications, Japan (405,361), the Republic of Korea (272,315) and Germany (155,896). Applications in India were in the region of 77,000.