India's patent applications jump by 31.6%, ahead of some rich countries

On trademark filings, India was in the top four with 467,918 filings in 2022, behind the US, Turkey, and Germany

India clocked a gigantic rise of 31.6 per cent in patent filing by resident applicants, the highest of any country in 2022 as compared with the previous year, according to the latest study released recently by the World Intellectual Property  Organisation (WIPO).

With 55,718 resident patent applications in 2022, India’s numbers grew much faster than other competing countries 

that include Switzerland (6.1 per cent), China (3.1), and Austria and the UK (both at 2.5 per cent).
 

In terms of the granting of patents, too, India had among the fastest growth of 15.5 per cent (16,346) in 2022 out of the top 20 countries, behind only China which grew at 19 per cent on a far bigger base (760,171).
 

But it was not rosy on all fronts. In India the waiting period between the patent office taking the first action and eventually clearing or rejecting an application took a staggering 51 months in 2022.
 

This ranked as the second longest time anywhere except for Mexico, which took just over 51 months. In China, the same process took only 16.5 months.
 

Also noteworthy is the pretty high number — 30.1 per cent — of the resident applications for patents that were either withdrawn or abandoned.
 

Nonetheless, WIPO acknowledged In­dia’ s contribution to the world of patents by noting that a record 3.46 million patent applications (as opposed to resident patent applications) were filed in 2022 which shows an increase of 1.7 per cent over the previous year.
 

Its report says the substantial rise in filings by China in 2022 along with “robust contributions from the intellectual property (IP) office of India (15,495 additional applications)…. was the main driver of growth in 2022”.
 

WIPO also said that the patent applica­tions by residents of India helped in “ext­ending an 11-year run of growth un­mat­ched by any other country among the top 10 filers” in the world.
 

India is now in seventh position in ac­tual number of patents filed by residents. This is higher than the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands but lower than France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, the US and China. The latter hit 1.5 million, which is far ahead of any other country.
 

On trademark filings, India was in the top four with 467,918 filings in 2022, behind the US (945,571), Turkey (482,567), and Germany (479,334).
 

Women also featured in India’s performance. They had a share of 23.9 per cent of all the Patent Cooperation Treaty applications. At least one Indian woman was an inventor among the top 10 countries.
 

However, while India is 17th in a list of the top 20, its performance pales when compared with China where women accounted for 47.9 per cent of the patent applications.
 

India is also nowhere near the top 20 in terms of the ratio of resident patent application to GDP or population. On both criteria, South Korea comes out on top.