Infosys to increase patent filings

Infosys Technologies Limited, the country's second largest IT company, expects patent filings to increase with its primary R&D centre, Software Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs), expanding the scope of research to new areas.

During the third quarter of the current financial year, Infosys applied for an aggregate of 16 patents in the US and India. With this, Infosys has filed an aggregate of 109 patent applications (pending) in both countries and has been granted 2 patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Nearly, 50 per cent of the patent applications have been generated by SETLabs with the rest coming from Infosys' various divisions. Set up seven years ago, SETLabs has been focussing on research in software engineering and software oriented architecture.

It develops tools, frameworks, methods, and technology architecture. It has been working on several technologies such as enterprise mobility, pervasive computing and web services. SETLabs also assists Infosys in improving the company's end to end delivery capabilities.

"Initially, the aim was to assist the company in developing new processes and methodology for new lines of business and client servicing. The practice was to successfully develop a new service offering, standardise and run it within the labs. We have been focussing on patents in the last two years. We will see more innovation from this labs," said Subrahmanyam Goparaju, vice-president & head-SETLabs.

The 500-member strong team in the SETLabs will be focussing on new areas of research such as simulation and visualisation.

"We have had multiple successes in the past. We will take up extensive research into these areas. We are also conducting research into domain specific analytics such as financial analytics," Goparaju added.

"The SETLabs has played critical role for the company at various levels. It provides Infosys the service differentiation. It helps the company better the competition with new products and services. It is central to Infosys' growing innovation culture," he contended.

Goparaju said SETLabs will continue to contribute 50 per cent of the patent filings submitted by the company. "We want to maintain our contribution at 50 per cent with the rest coming from Infosys' various other groups," he added.