Algo rhythm: India's global patent share now higher than UK, shows data

The pandemic years have seen an uptick in patents granted in India. The government granted about 18,000 patents a year on average in the three years ended fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20), leading up to the period the pandemic took hold in India. This rose over 41 per cent to 25,000 in FY21 and FY22, data from the annual report of the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) shows.
 
Patent applications rose 1.9 per cent, from around 52,000 on average annually in the three years leading up to the pandemic to 53,000 in the two years since. The FY22 numbers, coinciding with the worst of the second wave, showed a dip to 47,000 (Chart 1).

 
The volume of patent applications the other large economies process is larger. China’s share of global patents was 40.5 per cent in 2021, followed by 18.6 per cent for the US. India’s share was 1.7 per cent, nearly double the 2017 figure of 0.9 per cent. It is also higher than the UK (0.6 per cent — see Chart 3).

 
A key reason for India’s relatively low patent numbers is its low expenditure on research and development (0.7 per cent of GDP in 2020), noted the 2021-22 Economic Survey.