Patent ecosystem in India to boost innovation and modernize Indian industry

Patent Office has granted 1,03,057 patents in FY 2023-24. Various steps taken by the Government to further strengthen the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) ecosystem in India are as under:

1. Modernization of IP offices using IT enabled and advanced technologies:

All documents filed before the Patent Office are completely digitized and are made available online for proceedings leading to final disposal. Resultantly, applicants need not visit Patent & Trade Marks Offices for filing, processing and getting Patent and Trademark grant/registration certificates.

2. Fees Incentives

a) Owing to fee concessions in patents applications, there has been a significant increase in Patent filings by Startups, MSMEs and Educational Institutes and same is as under:

Year	Startups		Small Entity		Educational institutes (EI)
	(SU)		(SE)
	Indian	Foreign	Indian	Foreign	Indian	Foreign
2018-19	801	10	607	75	Fees Concession  was given in Sep 2021
2019-20	1650	2	576	272
2020-21	1598	13	744	53
2021-22	1482	19	985	384	7405	96
2022-23	2016	25	1329	429	19155	275
2023-24	2546	25	3421	128	23306	237

Similarly, 75% fee concessions at each stage of prosecution of Design applications are extended to startups and MSMEs and 50% to Trade Mark application filing.

3.  Awareness in IPR and Recognition & Rewards to Top IP Achievers:

National Intellectual Property Awareness Mission (NIPAM) was launched in December 2021 to impart IP awareness and basic training in educational institutes across the country and as a consequence, more than 2 million persons have been trained about IPRs so far. Also, IP awards have been conferred every year to recognize and reward the top achievers and many among them were also invited as special guests to Government of India in the Republic Day Celebration 2024 to recognise their efforts.

4. Scheme for Facilitating Start-Ups Intellectual Property Protection (SIPP)

SIPP scheme was launched in 2016 to support startups in safeguarding their IP rights (Patents, Trademarks and Designs) by providing opportunity to avail pro bono facilitation by empanelled IP experts and facilitation fees of the IP experts to be borne by the Government. After the scheme, there has been a significant increase in IP applications by startups. Details about IP filing by startups are as under:-

IP	Increase in filing in last 6 years (2017-18 to 2023-24)
Patents	355%
Trade Marks	543%

 5.  Capacity Building:

To address liquidation of the backlog applications, technical manpower strength in Patent office has increased by promoting various officers to the post of Controllers in the Patent office, and further, young professionals and technical assistants were engaged on contractual basis to support Controller’s decision making. This has resulted in granting more than 1 lakh patents in a single year 2023-24.

The requisite details are as follows:

As on June 23, 2024, the Office of Geographical Indications Registry has registered a total of 643 GI Applications in the country.

This information has been provided by the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Shri Jitin Prasada in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

Intellectual property modernization accelerates patent grants and eases digital filing, boosting access for startups and MSMEs. The Office implemented end-to-end online prosecution through comprehensive digitization, increased technical capacity to reduce backlog, and applied targeted financial incentives and the SIPP pro bono facilitation scheme to expand patent, trademark and design filings by startups, MSMEs and educational institutions, supported by national awareness and GI registry enhancements.