With continuous growth
in Intellectual Property (IP) filing activities worldwide, India has witnessed a remarkable upsurge in Industrial Design, patent, and trademark filings in the last year, i.e., 2018.
Where on one side, the nation saw more than 20% hike in trademark filing, on
the other side, it witnessed a rise of 13.6% in the industrial design
applications. While global applications for obtaining the Patent Protection increased by 5.2 %, Indian patent filings grew to 7.5%.
Furthermore, the number of pending applications in the country hit a reduction
of 25% in 2018 as compared to 2017. All these statistics have brought India
onto the top tenth (10th) position amongst 49 countries ranked on the basis of
the total (abroad and resident) IP filing activities.
Who’s At the First Position?
With over 50% of the
overall applications, including trademarks, patents, and designs, the most the global increase in the IP filings were made by China – as per World Intellectual
Property Indicator of 2019. When compared with the year 2017’s IP filings, China
received around 160,400 more applications in 2018. If considered
globally, Trademark Applications calculated 14.3 million, up 15.5%, industrial design
fillings amounted to 1.3 million, and patent ones representing a growth of 5.2%
in comparison to figures of 2017 exceeded 3.3 million.
Who Stood Second?
Listed as the second
rank nation – the US, unfortunately, witnessed a 1.6% fall in patent filings in
2018. Though the country’s trademark filing activity rose by 4.3%, yet fall
in Patent Applications, which is the first decline the nation faced in the previous a decade is a point of worry.
As per Francis Gurry, the director-general of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), Asia is
persistently emerging as the global hub for IP filings.
Coming back to India,
the count of domestic applications for patents in this nation is continually increasing.
It jumped from 22% in 2013-14 to 34% in 2018-19. According to the data provided
by DPIIT (Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade), the IP
filings in the country have seen a notable rise in almost every sector,
covering information technology (IT), science, and computer science. Moreover,
startups, along with small and medium-sized enterprises, are also adding a lot
in the IP fillings figures of India. For instance, IP applications by these
industries saw a nearly 200% raise, and the numbers became 511 from 160 in
2016-17. In terms of patent filings related to the IT field, IT companies –
Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were ranked 1st and 2nd respectively,
while Hike, the seven-year-old startup, stood at the third position.
Though Kavin Bharti The Mittal-led firm has been working in the field of R&D (research and
development), including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision, and
Social Network Analysis, it has not yet uncovered reasons for filing 66
patents. Intended to incentivizes the employees with rewards and grants in
addition to providing prospective patent filers with legal and market guidance,
the company has recently launched a Hike Patent Program.
Undoubtedly, many
other firms, whether related to IT or other fields, are also on the same path.
It shows that the individuals, companies, whether startups, small, medium, or
large, are recognizing the importance of Intellectual Property Protection. Besides, not just the businesses or entrepreneurs but even the
government of India, is actively taking part in flourishing the IP filing scale
of the nation. For instance, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had reduced
the patent filing fees for startups and MSMEs to Rs. 1600 from Rs. 4,000. It is
one of the many steps that the department took to encourage people to come up
with new ideas, inventions, designs, etc.
Ultimately, with over
60% of youth constituting India’s population and growing use of the internet
and technology, pushing India further amongst the top five (or above) nations
in the IP fillings worldwide should not be a big hurdle. However, it needs
efforts on the part of both – the organizations and the government as the rise
in IP filings will boost innovation and R&D activity, and the need to
safeguard the innovations and products will grow the IP fillings in the
country. ✅ For view-source: https://bit.ly/2Cidfpn
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