IIT Madras patent filings increase by 33%

Approval for international patents doubled to 15 during the year 2015-16

The patent filings by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has recorded an increase of 33% to 93 filings during 2015-16, against 70 last year. The Electronic System & Design Manufacturing (ESDM) sector has the highest number of patent filings among the industrial sectors in which these patents were filed, with 18 patent applications during the year.

Institute has also topped among the IITs in the country, with the highest number of patent filings, with around 248 patent applications so far, out of which 13 has been approved. According to reports quoting Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in September, this year, IIT Bombay follows with a total of 205 patent applications of which 10 were approved.
 

"The actual effort to preserve the Intellectual Property generated in IIT Madras was started at the end of 2012 or in the beginning of 2013. Till then, the faculties were focusing on publishing papers and after that, it has changed to first filing the patent and later publishing," said Krishnan Balasubramanian, dean of Industrial Consultancy & Sponsored Research (IC&SR). He added that a majority of the patent applications it has filed is pending with the Intellectual Property Office.

Apart from the 93 national patent filings, IIT-M has also filed 14 international patents in 2015-16, as compared to 55 patent filings during the previous fiscal year. However, the number of international patents which received approval has doubled to 15 during the year, which is the highest in the last five years, as compared to seven during the previous year, according to the data from IIT-M.

During 2014-15, the institute has received 8 patent approvals, which is the highest among last five years, while in 2015-16, it was one approval.

The highest number of patent applications during the year was filed in ESDM (18 applications), followed by Energy and Infrastructure (17 applications), Bio-Medical Engineering and Manufacturing and Chemical sector (11 applications). In the comparable period of previous year, the OEM sector saw 15 patent applications filed, followed by Energy and Infrastructure (12 application).

IIT Kharagpur received the highest number of patents granted during 2015-16, with 19 approvals, followed by IIT (BHU) Varanasi, which bagged 18 approvals during the year, according to data from Council of Indian Institute of Technology.

IIT Delhi has seen a total filing of around 100 patent applications so far, according to reports quoting MHRD. A total of 453 patent applications filed by 16 IITs, said reports.