But it is the small product companies in India that are truly leading the charge. Companies like Ramco, Subex, i-flex (now Oracle) and Sasken have been taking a lead in terms of patents being filed. In fact, embedded solutions company, Sasken filed a total of 39 patents in FY 07, of which 6 were granted, taking its total to a healthy 15. Another company, Newgen, intends to file around 200 patents in the next few years.

MNCs Rule the Roost
The global behemoths dominate the IP scene in India with 63% of non-resident patents granted as a percentage of total patents in 2004, according to WIPO. Little wonder, as India is an important development center for most of the big companies right from IBM to Symantec, and a lot of IP is created in India itself. Microsoft, Symantec and Adobe have been quite active in this space and have filed for many patents with the Indian office.

Another company that has been quietly filing for applications is Google. According to a report published by the Indian Patent Office, Google filed for two patents in 2007, one for "advertisements for device with call functionality, such as mobile phones" and another for "adjusting ad costs using document performance or document collection performance".

The Dragon and the Tiger
While India is often clubbed with China in terms of IP vulnerability, China is a success story in terms of patents. Consider this, till 1985, there were no patents granted to Chinese companies, according to WIPO. It was in 1985 when China was granted a total of 44 patents (Indias tally stood at 1,814). Over the next three years, Chinese companies were focused on creating IP and the number of patents granted to India and China in 1987 stood at 2,027 and 422, respectively.

In 1989, China marched ahead of India, in just a matter of four years, and the number of patents granted was 2,303 and 1,986 for China and India, respectively. In 2004, the gap had widened immensely, and the number of patents for China stood at 49,360, while India moved along at 2,317. These statistics prove the dragon s IP prowess versus the tigers.

IITs to Pitch
Internationally, IP is created by universities and institutions as well. Some of the universities in the US have been the cradle for technological development and advances, like Stanford and MIT. Sadly, in India, even the premier institutes have been more focused on academic brilliance than marketable products. IITs have been doing some work on this front with the incubator companies.

But a lot more needs to be done. India gave the world the number zero that is today the basis of every human application, including the PC (0s and 1s). India has the potentials to boom in the IP domain but the needs to be harnessed.

Shashwat Chaturvedi & Chethna Gadiyar with inputs from Stuti Das
shashwatc@cybermedia.co.in

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