New Delhi: India registers 34.4 patents in regards to per million people as compared to other developed countries, the government today said. In a written response to a question in Lok Sabha, Y C Chowdary, Minister of State in the Ministry of Science and Technology said, as per the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) latest statistics, India registers a few research applications (patents) than other top filing countries.
In 2013, India registered 43,031 patents in comparison to 8,25,136 patents by China, 5,71,612 patents by USA, 3,28,436 by Japan, 2,04,589 by Korea, 63,167 by Germany and 44,914 by Russia.
“As per the WIPO statistics, the domestic and foreign patents filed in India per million population are far less than other countries. India registered 34.4 patents per million population in comparison to 4,037 by Korea, 2,579 by Japan, 1,806 by USA, 607 by China and 357 by United Kingdom.
“The main purpose for less number of patent filing are lack of awareness on patent system, its benefit among individuals, academic institutions and industries and low spending on research and development by private sector. “The government has taken various steps to encourage patents filing like generating awareness programmes among stake holders, encouraging potential applicants, organising Knowledge Expo and Design Summit for filing patents in collaboration with WIPO,” Chowdary said.
He added that of the total researchers engaged in Research and Development (R&D), only 14.3 per cent are women. “27,532 (14.3 per cent) women researchers are engaged in R&D activities in comparison to the total 1.53 lakh researchers,” he said.
