The Hindu Business Line : Domestic cos shy away from keeping patents ‘in force’

New Delhi, June 16 Technology, and in some cases commercial value, is changing at such a fast pace that there has been a drop in the number of patents that Indian companies are keeping alive by paying maintenance fee to the domestic patent office.

Data available with the patents office reveals that domestic companies are shying away from paying the mandatory licence fee required for maintaining some of their patents or as in technical parlance, keeping them ‘in force’. Ironically, this is at a time when the number of patents that are being granted has surged.

For instance, Ranbaxy and Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have cited lack of business interest or obsolete technology as reasons for abandoning granted patents. CSIR, which claims to have a share of almost 20 per cent of the total patents granted to Indians in 2006-07, estimates that on an average 6 per cent of them are allowed to lapse. The organisation was granted 281 patents in FY 2006-07.

Cause tab

“Keeping a patent in force is determined by how effective enforcement is and whether such enforcement would provide any commercial value as payback,” admitted Mr Ramesh Adige, Executive Director, Ranbaxy. “Besides, another reason why there would have been a reduction in the number of patents in force could be in the area of process patents. Since most process patents were filed by Indian companies as MNCs were not filing on the processes in the pre-2005 regime, there could have been a decline,” he commented.

Other reasons for non-renewal cited by patent office officials include its purely academic nature in some case, lack of financial resources by individuals or instances when companies have not found the right partner to whom they could license the particular patent or technology.

For foreign firms

In contrast foreign companies are known to keep their patents here alive. “The high number of patents that foreign companies keep ‘in force’ reflects the significance of the domestic market, compelling them to maintain them,” said an official from the FICCI- DIPP working group.

According to patent attorney, Mr Sameer Panda from law firm Anand and Anand, Indian companies spend 2 per cent of their turnover on R&D as against foreign companies that usually spend double the amount.