Patents’ filing in India is growing at 11 % YoY with more than 36,000 patents being filed annually: Zinnov

~ Total number of patents filed in China outweighs India by a huge factor of eight ~

Bangalore, February, 21 2011 – Zinnov Management Consulting, a leading globalization advisory firm, today released a first-of-its-kind whitepaper on the Intellectual Property on the Indian Landscape, titled, ‘IP Capacity Landscape in India’. The whitepaper released today highlights the challenges to IP creation and protection in India, and also recommends measures to further strengthen the ecosystem. The piece also presents an in-depth comparative analysis of India’s growing IP capacity with other growing economies such as China and Brazil.

Highlighting some of the key findings of the white paper read that India in the current context has emerged as one of the most sought after markets by global as well as domestic companies, and already contributes to the development of new products and innovations. The current R&D spend of approximately 1% of its GDP is slated to double in the next few years; and there is a need to further strengthen the IP ecosystem to boost increased R&D in the country.

Speaking about the whitepaper, Mr. Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd,said, “India’s steady growth of over 8 per cent since 2004 has made the country a highly sought-after hub for multinational corporations. Today India actively contributes to the development of new products and innovations, and consequently, it becomes imperative to evaluate the state of innovation and intellectual property (IP) protection in India”.

“We very strongly feel that in today’s scenario, it is essential to bring all ecosystem constituents onto a common platform and help them air their views to help collaborate towards achieving the common goal of a robust IP ecosystem in India. And this can be done by creation of an independent institutional entity as one of the key solutions catering to the IP related needs of the Indian industry”, he added.

Divulging further insights, the paper read that the number of patents filed in India, has increased at an average of 11% per year for the last three years to reach more than 36,000 patents annually. However, the total number of patents filed in China and India suggests that Chinese IP outweighs its Indian counterpart by a huge factor of eight.

Besides this, the release whitepaper also brought to light some challenges that the industry faces currently, like lack of education and awareness about IP, its ownership and its value, coupled with, difficult access to capital to invest in IP creation. Others like lack of comprehensive IP commercialization frameworks, inadequate enforcement of IPRs and lack of adequate supportive legal/ policy frameworks are also some strong ones that are restricting the growth of IP creation in India. And last but not the least, the lack of IP infrastructure in the form of IP agents, law schools, and special IP courts.

The whitepaper concludes by suggesting some focused measures to overcome such challenges and place India firmly on knowledge economy map. It suggests the need to bring all ecosystem constituents on a common platform by creating an independent institutional entity as one of the key solutions catering to the IP related needs of the Indian industry. The recommended entity would have the following defined goals:

• Bridge the gap between the Venture Capitalists & startups and help attract capital in the system
• Help technical professionals (IP creators) to better articulate their business model and result in commercialization of IP
• Help different ecosystem constituents arrive at an consensus towards IP policy reforms and put it forward to the government in a unified manner
• Provide IP sharing guidelines between universities and industry
• Provide a common research , development and innovation database
• Consult different stakeholders to replicate the success witnessed by other emerging/ emerged nations

About Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd

Founded in 2002, Zinnov – meaning Zeal in Innovation – is a leading management consulting company providing services in the area of Offshore Advisory, Market Expansion and Human Capital Optimization to Fortune 1000 companies. Zinnov works collectively with clients to tackle prevailing organizational challenges by analyzing the changing dynamics, improving performance, and building institutional capability. The services delivered to its clients through advanced reasoning and analytical techniques, provides solutions that help in integrating organizational vision, business definition and processes.