A recent World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) report said the number of GenAI patent families has surged dramatically, increasing from 733 in 2014 to more than 14,000 in 2023. Research output has also exploded, with scientific papers growing from 116 in 2014 to over 34,000 in 2023.

A breakthrough in Gen AI came with a paper from google “Attention Is All You Need” which introduced a transformer neural network and showed how it was able to translate between English and French or English and German with more accuracy and in less time to train compared with other neural networks.

The introduction of the transformer architecture in 2017 led to an approximate 800 per cent increase in GenAI-related patents. Since 2017, researchers have developed various transformer-based models, including GPT family, Bert, etc.

These models have significantly improved, performance and applications in comprehending documents, answering questions, and generating new text, images, audio, video etc. The widening of horizons is also reflective in the fact that in 2023 alone, over 25 per cent of all GenAI Patent and 45 per cent of all GenAI scientific papers were published.

Patent filing

Per the WIPO report, China leads Patent filing in Gen AI segment with over 38,000 GenAI patent families being published from 2014–2023. Top Chinese Companies with AI Patents are, Tencent focusing on AI integration into its platforms like WeChat, Ping an Insurance Group using GenAI for underwriting and risk assessment, Baidu which recently released ERNIE 4.0, an AI chatbot. Other non-Chinese companies, which are major players, are IBM, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft. Japan, and India are also significant contributors though their numbers are still low.

Machine learning has led to AI systems learning from vast amounts of data to create new content, however, there are also concerns relating to use of GenAI models and tools, like copyright infringement, deepfakes, which are fake images or videos created without the consent of one or more persons in the image or video. Throughout the world there are discussions on Gen AI related regulations, which are being developed to reap the benefits of GenAI while mitigating any risks that may be involved. Similar to the global landscape of Generative AI, a surge in number of GenAI patent families can be seen in India too. The number of GenAI patent families filed in India from 2015 to 2020 has multiplied approximately 15 times.

The list of ‘Top Patent Holders’ in India does not mimic the list of ’Top Patent Holders’ globally. Google tops the list in India followed by Qualcomm, Samsung, Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft, Wipro etc. The common top players worldwide and in India are Google, Samsung, Microsoft.

Indian strides

Furthermore, India is not only showing an upward trend in relation GenAI space but also in overall filing of patents through government initiatives such as ‘Startup India’ and ‘Make in India’. According to Global Innovation Index 2024: India has risen significantly in the Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings, rising from 81st in 2015 to 40th in 2024. The GII 2024 evaluates the innovation ecosystem performance of 133 economies and tracks the latest global innovation trends.

The government is also endorsing and supporting inclusion of GenAI in diverse sectors. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC- a private non-profit company established by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of Government of India) recently launched Saarthi, a reference application designed to assist businesses in creating customised multilingual buyer apps. This indicates that Indian Government is acknowledging the importance of GenAI and its role in transforming different sectors.

Sharma is Partner (head – intellectual property); Suri is Director – patents) and Pandey is Principal Associate, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas