Indian Patent Office has grants 1,03,057 patents in FY 2023-24

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:

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:-

 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.