Developing a Comprehensive Database for Assessing the Patenting Activity in India

Sujit Bhattacharya, NISTADS, India

Introduction

The paper originates from a national study on patenting activity in India undertaken for the highest S&T advisory body in India, the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. The main objective of this study was to estimate the overall patenting activity in India and reveal its different facets over a period of time so as to assess the innovation activity in the country.

Method

To meet the objectives the main task undertaken was creation of databases covering Indian patenting activity in the US (USPTO: United States Patent and Trademark Office), Indian (IPO: Indian Patent Office) and European (EPO: European Patent Office) patent system for the period 1990-2002. Further PCT applications filed by India from 1998 to 2002 (India joined PCT in 1998) were also covered.

     Indian patenting in USPTO was covered under (a) patents granted to Indian organisations (b) foreign R&D centres in India and (c) Indian individuals. Citation data of patents citing Indian patents in terms of citing institution, times cited, sector-wise citation, year of citation, etc as well as journals citing Indian patents in terms of citing journal, intensity of citation, journal field/sub-field was also covered. USPTO online patent site was used for data extraction. Validation/value addition was undertaken using Patent Assignment database (of US patent office showing assignment records of granted USPTO patents), Patestate database (database of CSIR patents) and INPADOC.

   The opposition data (patent accepted by the IPO that would be finally granted if no opposition is received) was only available in machine-readable form in the IPO. Database was created from it after further updating and necessary modification of this data based on scanning patent gazettes of IPO; 48 gazettes were scanned for each year.

Results

The study resulted in the creation of different value added databases with the following data coverage: USPTO: 1051 patents (Indian organisations: 669 patents, Individuals 109 patents, and Foreign R&D centres 273 patents), IPO: 22695 patents (Indian organisations: 4848 patents, Individuals: 1838 patents, Foreign patents: 16009), EPO: 528 patens, PCT: 462 patents), details of cited/citing patents and citing journal.

  The study showed that Indian patenting activity could be estimated by covering patents in the USPTO and IPO as majority of Indian patents in the EPO had priority (first application) in USPTO or IPO. There were only a few patents in the other major patent system i.e. the Japanese Patent Office.

    The study identified important trends and insights such as (a) Foreign R&D centres playing a major role in patenting in the USPTO accounting for 26% of the overall Indian patents in USPTO (b) they were patenting in high technology areas: 'Office machinery and Computer' and 'Electronics' (c) Indian organisations had patenting strength in 'Pharmaceuticals' and 'Chemicals' (d) they were building patent portfolios in medicinal preparations and compounds targeting multiple diseases (diabetic, cancer, etc), herbal formulations, and catalysts (e) Indian patents were noticed as 39% of patents received citations from other patents and 14% received citations from journals.

  Some major drawbacks of Indian patenting activity were identified as (a) a few Indian organisations involved in patenting activity with 8 organisations accounting for 80% of patents and 20 organisations accounting for 60% of patents in the USPTO and IPO respectively (b) a few design patents (only 24 overall), (c) a few patents in joint collaborations (38 collaborative patents in USPTO and 35 in IPO), (d) lack of patenting activity in 'Office machinery and Computer' and 'Electronics'.

Conclusions

The study has resulted in the creation of a value added Indian patent database that should help in examining the gaps, trends, patents cited (in USPTO), patents in various sub-sectors, institution wise grouping, etc. The patents have been linked to ISIC (International Standard Industrial Classification) allowing examination of patents in various sectors/sub-sectors. This data can be also be correlated with SITC (Standard International Trade Classification).

  Analytical examination undertaken from the database has given insights into the patenting activity in the country and major gaps have been identified. The study is expected to help in strengthening the patenting activity in India and should contribute to proper international assessment of patenting activity in India.


Keywords: Indian Patent Database, Indian Patenting Trends, Indian Patent Statistics