International Patent filing by India fell 15% in 2008

International patent filings by India fell by nearly 15 per cent last year as the country filed only 766 patent applications in 2008 largely due to low level of investments in Research and Development projects in the country, a latest report has said.

India filed only 766 patent applications in 2008, whereas the same was 901 in 2007, a report by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has stated.

Explaining the decline in the number of patent filings by India, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Director General Samir K Brahmachari said, "In our country overall investment in Research and Development projects are very low and consequently patent filing is also not so high."

CSIR, the country's premier research organisation, is one of the biggest patent applicants in India and in 2006 it was among the top 10 users of WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from developing countries.
    
Though India has emerged as the third largest patent applicant among developing countries across the world in 2008, there is not a single institution from India in the top 50 PCT applicants.
    
Brahmachari said, "Unlike other developed nations, Indian corporate houses are not spending huge budgets in the field of R&D, which is a matter of great concern."
    
India significantly lags behind its neighbouring economy China, which has filed nearly eight times more applications, the WIPO report has said.
    
According to the report, China has submitted 6,089 patents in 2008 and holds second position among the developing countries, whereas another Asian nation -- the Republic of Korea has topped the list in this category by filing nearly 7,908 patent applications.