India’s penchant for patents seems to be on the wane, with the country’s patent filings declining steadily since 2006.
The number of applications has come down to 686 in 2007 from 831 in the previous year
NEW DELHI: India’s penchant for patents seems to be on the wane, with the country’s patent filings declining steadily since 2006.
According to the provisional data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty, the number of applications from India has come down to 686 in 2007 from 831 the previous year. Further, the country’s 679 applications in 2005 is lesser than the 724 applications in 2004. Again, in 2003 there were 764 applications.
The United States, Japan and Germany top the list of patents filings with first, second and third places, respectively. The Republic of Korea overtook France to occupy the fourth position, followed by France at fifth spot. Among the developing countries, Republic of Korea and China had the largest number of patent applications last year. While Korea had 7,061 applications, China had 5,456. India stood third followed by South Africa (390), Brazil (384), Mexico (173), Malaysia (103), Egypt (41), Saudi Arabia (35) and Colombia (31) among the emerging economies.
Developing nations account for 78% of the Patent Cooperation Treaty membership, representing 108 of the 138 countries that have signed the treaty. Other countries in the top ten are United Kingdom (6th), China (7th), Netherlands (8th), Switzerland (9th) and Sweden (10th).
Interestingly, the most notable growth rate came from countries in north-east Asia which accounted for 25.8% of all international applications. The growth in patent filings by a number of countries in this region and their share of overall patenting activity is impressive and confirms shifting patterns of innovation around the world, said WIPO director general Kamil Idris.
In terms of top companies of the PCT system in 2007, Matsushita of Japan bagged the first place with 2,100 applications, overtaking Dutch multinational Phillips Electronics NV which had 2,041 filings. Siemens (Germany) with 1,644 applications was in the third place followed by Huawei Technologies of China (1,365 applications), Bosch of Germany (1,146), Toyota of Japan (997), US-based Qualcomm (974), Microsoft (845), Motorola (824) and Finland-based Nokia (822).
On an average, WIPO receives over 400 PCT applications every day. “WIPO is handling an unprecedented volume of applications with lower staff numbers and is effectively responding to increased demands resulting from changing patterns of innovation,” deputy director general who oversees the work of the PCT Francis Gurry said.
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