Awareness of patent registration increased in India leading to milestone achievements.

When a country has a lot of patents, it shows that invention and innovation are thriving. India had a lot of practices for centuries that were innovative and inventive but wasn't aware of the protection of inventions, because it was already incorporated into the day-to-day lives of the common people of India. Using this loophole, foreign nations patented many of our inventions and practices. While we fought back against those practices and won certain cases such as the neem patent where India has won a 10-year-long battle at the European Patent Office (EPO) against a patent granted on an anti-fungal product, derived from neem. EPO initially granted the patent to the US Department of Agriculture and multinational WR Grace in 1995. While India still fighting many patent cases, we also concentrated on patenting new inventions.

The awareness of protecting our intellectual property has increased in this digital era. One of the recent good news is that for the first time in the last 11 years the number of domestic patent filings has surpassed the number of international patent filings at the Indian patent office in the Quarter Jan-Mar 2022.

The numbers show a total of 19796 patent applications were filed.

Indian applicants filed 10706 against 9090 by non-Indian applicants.

Key achievements

* Filing of patents has increased from 42763 in 2014-15 to 66440 in 2021-22, more than a 50% increase in 7 years.

* Nearly five times increase in the grant of patents in 2021-22 (30,074) compared to 2014-15 (5978).

* Reduction in patent examination time from 72 months in Dec 2016 to 5-23 months at present, for different technological areas.

* India's ranking in the Global Innovation Index increased to 46th in 2021 (+35 ranks) compared to 81st in 2015-to16.

"The coordinated effort by DPIIT and IP office has led to increased IP awareness among all strata of society. These efforts, on one hand, increased the number of IPR filings. On the other hand, has reduced the pendency of patent applications at IP offices," said Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal.

Key initiatives taken by the Government are

1) fee concessions like a 10% rebate on online filing,

2)An 80% fee concession for Startups, Small Entities, and educational institutions, and provisions for expedited examination for Startups and MSMEs.

It's time to protect your innovation and inventions. Take this opportunity to proceed to protect your intellectual properties.