Study finds patent regime abysmal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 27

Scientists from DST-Centre for Policy Research (CPR) at Panjab University (PU) have conducted a study on patents commercialisation profile of 904 institutions comprising Indian higher education institutions (HEIs) and national research laboratories (NRLs).

The study has been authored by scientist-C Mamta Bhardwaj and scientific officer Amandeep Sandhu. The study is first of its kind in the country in which patent commercialisation of HEIs and NRLs has been examined and published in Current Science on January 10.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) leads the chart with 863 patents granted (in India only) and has 44% share of the total granted patents for the period 2010–17.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is at the second position with 308 patents followed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay with 76 patents.

The study has been compiled based on working/non-working statements submitted by patentee in the prescribed ‘Form-27’ of the Indian Patent Office.

The study reveals that only a handful of organisations and first-generation IITs like the CSIR, New Delhi; DRDO, New Delhi; ISRO, Bangalore; ICAR, New Delhi; DBT, New Delhi; C-DAC, Pune; ICMR, New Delhi; DIT, New Delhi and IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur have good patent commercialisation profile.

Indian HEIs are doing well in research publications, but lagging in patents generation and its commercialisation. In the study it has been found that Indian patentees do not take submitting of the ‘Form-27’ seriously. Moreover, reasons mentioned for the non-working status are unconvincing.

The abysmal patent regime in India is the result of the lack of awareness among inventors/researchers and the absence of dedicated IPR/tech transfer policies. Most prominent is the lack of awareness and those who are aware are hesitant in filing patent as the process is time consuming and costly for an individual.