TMCnet News
IT's not in top 10 cos filing patents(The Economic Times (India) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge): It may be the IT industry that's spearheaded India's efforts to be recognised as a knowledge power. But if you're looking for intellectual property created, it's the biosciences, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries that are quitely filing away for patents. In the list of the top 10 Indians filing for patents under the Patent Co-operation Treaty in 2004, the IT companies don't figure at all. Leading on the list is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) with 186 patents filed, followed by Ranbaxy Laboratories with 56, Dr Reddy's Laboratories with 19, Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries with 8 and Avestha Gengraine with 6. In United States, the top 10 patent filers are all IT companies "That's very different from what's happening in the United States - there the top 10 patent filers are all IT companies. In fact, if one looks at the international scenario, India is way behind and there's a lot that needs to be done - there's awareness about IP that needs to be created" says Pravin Anand, patents expert and lawyer. Leading the pack in the US in 2004 was IBM with a whopping 3,248 patents filed, Anand points out. The other nine follow way behind, led by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. with 1,934, Canon Kabushiki Kaisha with 1,805, Hewlett-Packard with 1,775, Micron Technology with 1,760, Samsung Electronics with 1,604. Anand admits that for countries like India, looking to increase their position in the world economy, IP protection can be particularly important to encourage foreign investment and greater local innovation. Admitting that the number of IT companies filing patents was rather low, Sunil Mehta, vice president, Nasscom, explained that a significant increase was expected in the next five years as more and more IT companies move up the value chain and focus on developing software products, embedded software for new consumer electronic devices. As of now the Patents Act does not allow filing of patents for just software algorithms or programmes unless they've been created to be embed-ded in a hardware device. "The key constraint is that the filing fees ($10,000 and above) are high, deterring small entrepreneurs from applying for a patent. In addition, there is not adequate legal expertise available to such small start-ups," says Mehta. To tackle this, Nasscom has suggested to the government to set up a patent application fund in a public private partnership model which would provide the bulk of the filing fees to encourage young start-ups to protect their innovations. Meanwhile, Avesthagen has more than doubled its filing of patents to 19 in 2005, according to Kavya Thadani, IPR executive, Avestha Gengraine. The number includes both Indian and PCT applications filed. "Avesthagen has evolved a unique model in the biotechnology sector by spinning off specific activities to provide the best value for investors and to facilitate quick ramp up, leveraging the highly sought after IPR platforms developed by the company in recent years. Patents have been an important part of our business plan," Thadani says. There's also TRIPS compliance that makes patent filing imperative. "TRIPS complaince, if not already done, in the areas of drugs, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and microbiological inventions provide a major challenge to developing countries," says R K Gupta, head, intellectual property management division, CSIR., in a paper on the subject of patents recently. (##include msid=47949085,type=11 ##) Govt to trim patent handling time to 6 mths-5 yrs By Shantanu Nandan Sharma : The government is working on a fast-track solution to ease the burden of ever growing patent applications in India. Once the system is in place, the procedure of completing a patent application will take six months to five years, a senior official from the ministry of commerce and industry said. At present, the government needs at least 11 years to handle one patent application. In fact, only 4,000 patent applications were filed annually till a couple of years ago. However, there were about 17,000 applications in 2004-'05, which further went up to 25,000 during the last fiscal. Dr Ajay Dua, secretary, department of industrial policy & promotion, Central government told ET that the modernisation process of patent offices would help fast-track patent processing, apart from linking them with PCT network in Geneva. Patent Corporation Treaty makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in each of a large number of countries by filing an international patent application. Dua said, "We have been working hard to upgrade our capacity to handle more patent applications per year. Already, three of our patent offices in Kolkata, Chennai and New Delhi have been modernised. The modernisation process in the Mumbai office is on, and we are expecting to complete it by the end of May." |