Global companies are on a strong footing in protecting intellectual property as compared with domestic players who need to formulate protection strategies to gain competitiveness, according to R Devan, Deputy Controller of Patents and Designs.
According to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), about 80 per cent of patent applications at the office are filed by global technology companies. In the past decade, the number of applications by foreign applicants has risen by nearly three times to 34,276, he told a seminar on IP Protection and Management Strategies for Electronics and IT sector.
The data shows the top patent filers in the country are Qualcomm, Philips, Sony, Siemens, Ericsson, BASF and Microsoft. All these companies have strong presence in the European and US patent offices, Devan said at the seminar organised by CII in association with Department of Information Technology and Tamil Nadu Technology Development Promotion Center.
Patent filing activities of the top ten filers may correlate to India’s changing economic and industrial interests. India’s emergence as a large market for mobile telephone in 2005 along with its signing up to the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights has attracted global telecom companies to file large number of patent applications to protect their interests here, he said.