1.1 Trends in R&D Investments

I start by analysing the overall investments in R&D in the country as a whole (Table 1, p 44). Trends in R&D investments both at constant and current prices are tracked so also the overall Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) to GDP ratio as well. Both the nominal and real growth rates have declined since 1991 and the overall research intensity of the country has virtually remained constant pre- and post-liberalisation periods at about 0.78.4

Care has to be exercised while interpreting these figures that the overall investments in R&D have actually declined. This is because of certain peculiarities with respect to India’s R&D performance. Even now the government accounts for over 63% of the total R&D performed within the country although the share of government has tended to come down over time (Figure 1). This has been accompanied by an increase in R&D investments by business enterprises, which now account for about 30% of the total – a significant increase from just 14% in 1991 (for China the similar percentage is about 71% by business enterprises and research institutes (read government) account for only 19%). The increase in the share of R&D performed by business enterprises is generally considered to be a desirable trend as business enterprises tends to implement or productionise the results of their research rather more quickly than the government sector where much of the research does not fructify into products and process for the country as a whole.5

Source: Department of Science and Technology (2006 and 2008).

An interesting result thrown up by the above analysis is that the higher education sector, which includes the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Institutes of Technology and a host of over 300 universities, constitutes only a very small share of the total R&D performed within the country. In other words, the higher education sector in India is not a source of technology for the industry. However, the sector is an important source of

human resource for the other actors in India’s national system of innovation.

It is thus seen that the only actor of the country’s innovation system that has increased its share in total R&D performance has been the industrial sector. Within the industrial sector much of the R&D is performed by private sector enterprises (Table 6, p 47).

C urrently, Indian private sector enterprises spend approximately

four times their public sector counterparts and nearly three times

when compared to GRIs. In other words in terms of R&D performance, the private sector enterprises in India are moving towards the core of India’s innovation system.

This increase in the share of private sector in the performance of R&D is sometimes questioned on the grounds that the private sector enterprises reporting expenditures in this area to the DST would have exaggerated their spending to gain tax incentives that are available in India to any business enterprise investing in R&D. These tax incentives are linked to the volume of R&D performed. Hence the desire to overstate it. However, this does not appear to be the case and in order to verify this proposition we have compared the R&D investments as reported by the DST with those available from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) Prowess dataset (Appendix Figure 1, p 51). The comparison shows that although the level of R&D as reported by DST is higher over most of the years under consideration, the differences in the levels have tended to decrease over time. Moreover, the direction of movement of both the series is more or less exactly the same. So the argument that the increase in R&D expenditure by private sector enterprises is a mere statistical artefact does not appear to be true.

Within the industrial sector about four industries account for a significant share of R&D investments (Table 3, p 45). The pharmaceutical and the automotive industries are the two most important spenders on R&D. In fact, it is sometimes said that India’s national system of innovation is led by the sectoral system of innovation of her pharmaceutical industry.

An interesting point to be noted is that the R&D expenditure of the pharmaceutical industry was expected to decrease after the Indian Patent Act in 2005 was amended in compliance with the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This reasoning was based on the belief that much of the Indian R&D in pharmaceuticals was of the “reverse engineering” type and this may not be possible since the amended patents act requires recognition of both product and process patents, thus effectively reducing the space that is available for executing R&D projects of this type. However, in actuality, the R&D investments of private sector pharmaceuticals in India have been registering an increase of almost 35% per annum (Figure 2).

It can, therefore, be safely concluded that although overall R&D investments may not have increased, there have been tremendous increases in R&D by the private industrial sector enterprises led by the pharmaceutical industry. So based on this one

Figure 2: Average R&D Expenditure Per Firm in India’s Pharmaceutical Industry: Pre- and Post-TRIPS Compliance

18

16

Average R&D expenditure (in Rs crore)

12

8

4 Average per company

0

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 Source: Own compilation based on the Prowess dataset.

indicator, the more correct statement to be made is that there is not enough evidence to show that the entire industrial sector in India is becoming more innovative since 1991, but there is some evidence to show that the India’s pharmaceutical industry

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Public Sector Government Private Sector Ratio of Private Ratio of Private Enterprises Research Enterprises Sector to Public Sector to Government Institutes Sector Enterprise Research Institutes

1985-86 1,986.18 1,622.7 2,519.44 1.27 1.553

1986-87 2,356.99 1,723.36 2,916.33 1.24 1.692

1987-88 2,884.66 1,851.29 3,102.67 1.08 1.676

1991-92 4,843.88 2,745.50 6,369.44 1.31 2.320

1992-93 5,139.50 2,993.65 8,362.47 1.63 2.793

certainly is becoming more innovative. I propose to confront this proposition a bit more, but this time employing an input-based indicator such as the number of patents applied for and awarded.

1.2 Trends in Patenting

I consider the performance of Indian inventors with reference to four (three foreign and one Indian) different types of patenting. First and foremost is the US patenting performance, followed by India’s share in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications6 and in Triadic7 patents. This is followed by a discussion of the recent surge in Indian patenting within India itself.

1.2.1 US Patenting Behaviour of Indian Inventors

The US is considered to be the main market for disembodied technology and securing a patent for a new innovation in either a product may signal the technological strength of a firm or an institution that is actually patenting in that country. Further, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is supposed to have one of the lowest home biases as more than 50% of the patents that are issued in the US goes to-

Table 3: Industry-wide Distribution of Industrial R&D (cumulative shares in%, wards non-US entities. For 1998-99 to 2002-03)

these two reasons the

Industry Share

number of US patents is a

Metallurgical industries 4.21

good indicator. Given the av-

Fuels 6.12

erage time lag of two years

Electricals and electronic equipment 8.94

between patent applications

Telecommunications 3.75

and patent awards, I consider

Transportation 15.16

both patent applications and

Chemicals (other than fertilisers) 8.35

Drugs and pharmaceuticals	19.30	those awarded in	the	US.
Defence industries	8.32	Three dimensions of US pat-
Information technology	4.69	enting are considered: first

Biotechnology 1.59 the volume of patent applica-Others 18.97

tions and awards, second the

Total 100.00

distribution of patents ac-

Source: Department of Science and Technology

(2006 and 2008). cording to the ownership of

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november 14, 2009 vol xliv no 46

the assignee and third the field of specialisation of patenting from India.

Volume of Patents: The number of patents applied for and awarded is presented in Figure 3. In order to see the significance of Indian patenting I compare it not only across time but across the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRIC) group of countries as well.

The tables indicate that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of patents applied for and awarded since 1991. India accounts for approximately a third of the patents applied for and awarded by BRICS country innovators in the US.

In order to find out the specific year or years in which the structural break dates have occurred in patenting so that one can identify phases of growth (both in the applications and in awards), we perform some econometric tests8 (Table 4, p 46).

In the time series in patent applications and awards over the long period, 1965-2007, three break dates have been observed: for applications it is 1973, 1983 and 1992 and in the case of awards the three break dates are 1970, 1979 and 1997. It is seen that in

Figure 3: Number of Patents Applied For and Awarded to Indian Inventors in the USPTO (1963-2008)

3000 0.4

Number of patents applied for and awardedRatio of India to BRICS 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 Ratio of India to BRICS Applications Awards

1963 1968 1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2003 2008 Source: Compiled from the USPTO.

both cases there are two break dates of 1992 and 1997 and these are during the phase of economic liberalisation in the country. The time lag in the break dates in applications and awards is found to be five years as against the actual time lag of two years between patent applications and awards.

The lagged relationship9 between patent applications and awards (Figure 4, p 46) indicates that over the years the success rate of Indian applications (defined as the ratio of patent awards in year ‘t+2’ to applications in year ‘t’) for patents has actually decreased. This finding is interesting as during this period the USPTO had become a bit more liberal in awarding patents (Jeffe and Lerner 2004).

An analysis of the distribution of ownership of these patents (Table 5 and Figure 5, p 46) shows that in 1991, domestic inventors (consisting of government research institutes (read as CSIR), private sector enterprises and individuals) accounted for about 71% of the innovations taking place within the country. This has since got reduced to just 39%. The share vacated by domestic inventors have been taken up by foreign companies implying the

45

Break Dates First Break Second Break Third Break

1 Patent applications 1973 1983 1992

2 Patent awards 1970 1979 1997

Growth Rates (%) Period 1: Period 2: Period 3: Period 4: 1965-73 1974-83 1984-92 1993-2007

Distribution of Indian Patents in Distribution of Domestic Patents

the US according to Ownership (%) according to Ownership (%) MNCs Domestic GRI Private Sector Enterprises IOP

1991 29 71 27 27 45

2007 61 39 55 30 15

GRI: Government Research Institute; IOP: Individually Owned Patents . Source: Compiled from USPTO.

fact that many affiliates of MNCs have started doing R&D – often enough through the outsourcing mode10 – and have started taking patents based on this research. This implies that increasingly most of the US patents that are assigned to India are actually owned by MNCs. So an increase in the number of Indian patents in the US need not necessarily correspond to an increase in India 1999. A run through the list (Appendix Table 2) of these enterprises shows that almost all of them are from the IT and IT-related industries.

Thus, combining the data (Appendix Tables 1 and 2) it is clear that Indian private sector enterprises are specialising in pharmaceutical innovations while the foreign enterprises are specialising in IT-related patents. As a result, specialisation of Indian patenting in the US (Table 6) has actually increased. For instance in 1991, almost 65% of the Indian patents were in a wide range of technologies although the single largest patenting was in the area of pharmaceuticals and chemicals. But by 2007 almost 72% of the patenting was in just two broad areas of pharmaceuticals and ITrelated technologies.

In order to find out if Indian patents are competitive or not, I have computed the Revealed Technological Advantage (RTA) indices of two of the leading technologies in which Indian companies and CSIR are prolific (Figure 6). These are Class 424 Drug, Bio-Affecting and Body Treating Compositions (DBABTC) and 532 (Organic Compounds (includes Classes 532-570)).

Figure 4: Lagged Relationship between Patent Applications and Awards

1600

becoming more innovative or at best this proposition is difficult

to be substantiated in an unambiguous fashion.

The CSIR has an extremely good patenting record until 2003

(Figure 5) and thereafter it seems to be tapering off. The precise

reasons for this declining rate of patenting in CSIR require some

in-depth examination. Currently, CSIR is in the process of consoli

dating its patent inventory. It is supposed to be having a total of

3,016 patents in force (1,770 foreign, and 1,246 Indian patents)

and it is planning to transfer these to an independent profession

ally-managed holding company of the type like Intellectual Ven-

Number of patents applications for and grants 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 Patent applications Patent grants lag two years

1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005

tures Llc (Koshy and Kumar 2008) so that these patents can be

Source: USPTO.

more gainfully licensed and royalties earned. The next important category among domestic inventors is pri-

Figure 5: Trends in US Patenting by MNCs Operating from India, CSIR and Domestic vate sector enterprises (Figure 5). A run through this list of Private Sector Enterprises

d omestic enterprises (Appendix Table 1, p 50) shows us an inter

300

esting result, namely, that almost all the 23 firms11 excepting for

one a ctive in obtaining patents abroad are pharmaceutical firms and the only non-pharmaceutical firm is the largest IT services firm in the country.

This data further confirms that most of the innovations in India are actually done by pharmaceutical firms. Although IT services are an important industry with significant exports, the firms within the IT services industry in India do not appear to be active in patenting. A number of hypotheses have been put forward for this. First of all, Indian IT companies are much more services companies where they do not have that much scope for patenting as compared to the global IT companies which are more

Number of US patents granted 250 200 150 100 50 0 1969 1975 1981 1987 1993 1999 2005 2007 MNC CSIR Domestic private sector enterprises

product-oriented. Second, Indian IT companies depend on other forms of intellectual property right (IPR) mechanisms such as trade secrets and reducing the time spent to complete any typical project than filing patents as forms of IPRs.12

However, currently most of the Indian patents in the US are held by MNC affiliates operating from India. In fact, one can see a (Figure 5) sharp rise in the US patenting of these enterprises since

Both the indices are above unity implying competitiveness although for both the leading technology classes India’s competitiveness has been fluctuating for most of the years and since 2000 or so has been decreasing. Given the fluctuations in the data series, it is of course not so easy to conclude that competitiveness is actually decelerating.

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Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals IT-Related Telecommunications Total

1980 50.00 0 0.00 50.00

1991 45.45 0 4.55 50.00

2003 57.89 16.37 1.46 75.73

2007 30.04 33.52 8.42 71.98

Source: Compiled from USPTO.

RTA 14.00 12.00 10.00 8.00 6.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 532 424

Apart from US patenting, it is also possible for Indian inventors to secure patents abroad. Two of the important avenues for patenting are PCT applications at the World Intellectual Property O rganisation (WIPO) and Triadic patents.

1. 2.2 PCT Applications

India joined the PCT in 1999. Thereafter, the number of applications from India has been increasing and most of these are by firms and institutions (legal entities). See Appendix Table 3 (p 51). According to a news item in the journal Current Science (Anonymous 2003), India’s CSIR is one of the most notable performers from among the developing world in terms of PCT applications.

In fact, CSIR is supposed to be sharing the first rank along with Samsung of Korea although within the CSIR this good performance in patenting is restricted to just five laboratories13 out of a possible 38. An analysis of the technology-wide distribution of these patents (Appendix Table 4, p 51) confirms the result that we have obtained earlier from the analysis of US patenting. Most of these patents are in organic chemistry and in pharmaceuticals – showing that India’s innovation capability is largely in these specific areas.

IT and computer software-related areas; and (iv) among the do-1000 mestic inventors, CSIR is an important entity although private sector pharmaceutical enterprises too are very important. 0

India’s TBoP over the years since 1999-2000 (Figure 8). It is seen that India has been a net importer of technology until 2004-05. Over the last three years, the country has become a net exporter of technology thanks to increasing R&D and other technologybased outsourcing activities. Data constraints do not allow us to measure the TBoP industry-wide. But given the fact that much of R&D sourcing is confined to pharmaceutical and IT-related (including telecommunications) industries, this result, once again, substantiates the conclusions that we reached with the aid of the previous two indicators.

In conclusion, my analysis on India’s innovative performance over the period since 1991, the following points emerge:

0.7

Source: Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (various issues). 1980-81 1985-86 1990-91 1995-96 2000-01 2005-06 2007-08 Indian Foreign Ratio of Indian to Foreign

Ratio of Indian patents to foreign ones

trial sector now performs close to a third of overall GERD.

– Within the industrial sector over two-thirds of the industry is

performed by private enterprises and most of these are concen

trated in the pharmaceutical industry.

– Analysis of various types of patent data and notably the USPTO

data shows that much of it is actually done by MNCs operating

from India, although the domestic private sector and enterprises

and government research institutes (read CSIR) have also

Number of patents granted

0.6

10000

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0

since 1991.

– Once again, the patent data too shows that there is a specialisation in pharmaceutical technologies although MNCs operating from India tend to specialise in IT-related activities.

Figure 8: India’s Technology Balance of Payments (1999-2000 to 2007-2008) 5000

4000

3000

Total payments Total receipts TBoP

in $ million

2000

The Technology Balance of Payments is the third indicator of innovative performance that is usually employed in the literature although due to data constraints and to difficulties involved in interpreting the results it is not a popular indicator of innovativeness like R&D expenditure and patents.14 TBoP measures international transfers of technology licences, patents, know-how and research, and technical assistance. Although the TBoP reflects a country’s ability to sell its technology abroad and its use of foreign technologies, a deficit position does not necessarily indicate low competitiveness. Only a handful of countries in the world are net exporters of technology (the prominent among them are the US, Japan and Switzerland). I have constructed

1990-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08

Source: RBI (various issues).

– This prompts us to conclude that India’s national system of innovation is largely dominated by the sectoral system of innovation of her pharmaceutical and IT industries. The former is largely in the hands of domestic enterprises while the latter is in the hands of MNCs.

2.1 Financing of Innovation

India has two types of financial schemes for financing innovations: first, research grants and loans at concessional rates of interest and second, tax incentives for committing resources to R&D. A recent analysis by Mani (2008) showed that much if not all of the small number of research grants and loans available for financing innovations (such as those by the Technology Development Board, etc) are directed largely at the public sector although, as we have just demonstrated that, much of the innovations actually emanate from private sector enterprises. In short, there is a mismatch in the financing of innovations in the sense that research grants and concessional loans are not directed towards those sectors which are active in innovations. Second, the country has a tax incentive scheme for encouraging more investments in R&D. These incentives have been correctly fine-tuned to encourage innovations in 10 high and medium technology-based industries which are at the same time active in innovative a ctivity. Mani (2008) endeavoured to estimate the coefficient of elasticity of R&D with respect to tax foregone as result of this incentive scheme. The elasticity of R&D expenditure with respect to tax foregone as a result of the operation of the R&D tax incentive is less than unity for all the relevant industries, although it is s ignificant only in the case of the chemicals industry. In two of the industries, namely in automotive and electronic industries the elasticity is even negative, although not significant. From this the reasonable interpretation that is possible is that tax incentive does not have any influence on R&D, excepting possibly in the chemicals industry where it has some influence although even in this case the change in R&D as a result of tax incentive is less than the amount of tax foregone. This lack of a significant relationship between R&D and tax foregone can be explained by the fact that the tax subsidy covers only a very small percentage share (on an average 6%) of R&D undertaken by the enterprises in the four broad industry groups. So our conclusion is that for tax incentive to be effective in raising R&D expenditures it must form a significant portion of R&D investments by an enterprise. It is not thus a determinant of R&D investments by enterprises for the present.

2.2 Availability and Quality of Science and Engineering Personnel

The recent growth performance of knowledge-intensive industries in India is prompting many commentators to feel that India is transforming itself into a knowledge-based economy. The copious supply of technically trained human resource is considered to be one of the most important reasons for this growth performance. However, of late, the industry has been complaining of s erious shortages in technically trained manpower. For instance, a recent study (2007) conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has revealed that the rapid growth in the globally integrated Indian economy has led to a huge demand for skilled human resources. However, lack of quality in the higher education sector has become a hindrance

Economic & Political Weekly

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in filling the gap. The survey, based on a study conducted in 25 sectors, also showed that currently there is a shortage of about 25% skilled manpower in the engineering sector. Budgetary allocation for technical education has increased, although with some fluctuations. Its share as a proportion of expenditure on higher education has increased. In order to increase the quality of new supply of science and engineering personnel, the central government has established or is in the process of establishing five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, and 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology. Further, 30 new central universities of various sorts are going to be established.

(2003) and Gowda (2009). Studies).

European Union (EU) and Japan. It also takes in 13 These five are IICT, CFTRI, CIMAP, RRL (JM) and Mahalingam, T V (2003), “Intellectual Property: Indian NCL. IT Wakes Up To Patents”, Dataquest, http://dqin

vate, such as the amount of research and develop-14 Technology receipts and payments constitute the 103080411.asp (accessed on 20 July 2009).

ment undertaken and the technical skills of the main form of disembodied technology diffusion. Ministry of Science and Technology (2007): China

country’s workforce. See for details, Economist Trade in technology comprises four main catego-

Science & Technology Statistics Data Book, http://

Intelligence Unit (2009). ries: www.most.gov.cn/eng/statistics/2007/200801/

2 According to international press, the health deliv- – Transfer of techniques (through patents and P020080109573 867344872.pdf (accessed 15 July

ery sector in India is one such sector that is replete licences, disclosure of know-how).

2009).

with many innovations. See for the details, Econo-– Transfer (sale, licensing, franchising) of designs, Nayyar, Deepak (2008): “The Internationalisation of

mist (2009). trademarks and patterns.

Firms from India: Investment, Mergers and Ac

3 The recent release of Tata’s Nano and the innova- – Services with a technical content, including tech

quisitions”, Oxford Development Studies, March.

tions in bio design (MAC 400 an ECG machine nical and engineering studies, as well as technical

OECD (2009): OECD Factbook 2009: Economic, Envi

that can be used in rural areas) from General assistance.

ronmental and Social Statistics, http://titania.

Electric’s (GE) John F Welch Technology Centre – Industrial R&D.

sourceoecd.org/vl=4169706/cl=23/nw=1/rpsv/

in Bangalore are some of the innovations from the

The main limitations of these data are the hetero-factbook2009/07/01/04/index.htm (accessed on formal corporate sector targeted essentially at the

geneity of their content at country level and the 21 July 2009). rural sector that has made it into the news. For a

difficulty of dissociating the technological from

Reserve Bank of India (various issues): Reserve Bank systematic and journalistic account of the growth

the non-technological aspect of trade in services,

of India Bulletin.

of innovations in India in recent times, see Bagla

which falls under the heading of pure industrial

Smith, Keith (2004): “Measuring Innovation” in Jan and Goel (2009).

property. Trade in services may be under-

Fagerberg, David C Mowery and Richard R Nel4 For China the GERD to GDP ratio has actually in-estimated when a significant proportion does not

son (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

creased to reach 1.42% by 2006. See Ministry of give rise to any financial payments or when pay

(New York: Oxford University Press), pp 148-78.Science and Technology (2007). ments are not made in the form of technology

WIPO (2008): WIPO Statistics Database, July.

5 Governmental R&D in India is expended by atom-payments. ic energy, defence, space, health and agricultural sectors. The spillover of government research to

Appendix Table 1: Domestic Private Sector Enterprises

References Active in Patenting at the USPTO

civilian use is very much limited in the Indian

Domestic Private Sector Enterprises Cumulative Total

context although in more recent times, the con-

Anonymous (2003): “Innovation Chain and CSIR”,

1969-2007

scious efforts made by the government are slowly

Current Science, Vol 85, No 5, pp 570-74.

beginning to produce results. This is especially so

Bagla, Gunjan and Atul Goel (2009): “Innovation from Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd 78 in the area of space research.

India: The Next Big Wave”, The Business Week,

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd 33

6 Any resident or national of a contracting state of

11 February. the PCT may file an international application Dr Reddy’s Research Foundation 31

Balakrishnan, P and M Parameswaran (2007): “Ununder the PCT. A single international patent apderstanding Economic Growth in India, A Pre-Dabur Research Foundation 28 plication has the same effect as national applica

requisite”, Economic & Political Weekly, 14 July, Orchid Chemicals and

tions filed in each designated contracting state

pp 2915-22. Pharamaceuticals 22

of the PCT. However, under the PCT system, in

Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade

Panacea Biotec Ltd 16

order to obtain patent protection in the desig-

Marks (various issues): Annual Report.

nated states, a patent shall be awarded by each Wockhardt Ltd 14

Department of Science and Technology (2006 and

d e signated state to the claimed invention con

2008): R&D Statistics. Lupin Laboratories Ltd 13

tained in the international application.

Economist (2009): “Healthcare in India: Lessons from Sun Pharamaceutical7 A patent family is defined as a set of patents taken Frugal Innovator”, 16 April, http://www.econo- Industries Ltd 11 in various countries (i e, patent offices) to protect

mist.com/businessfinance/displayStor y.

the same invention. Triadic patent families are a Aurobindo Pharma Ltd 10

cfm?story_id=13496367 (accessed on 25 June

set of patents taken at all three of these major pat

2009). Torrent Pharamaceuticals Ltd 10 ent offices –the European Patent Office (EPO), the

Economist Intelligence Unit (2009): “A New Ranking of Usv Ltd 9Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the United States

the World’s Most Innovative Countries”, http://

Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Biocon Ltd 8

graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Cisco_Innovation_

8 This is based on the methodology contained in Complete.pdf (accessed on 4 August 2009). Biocon India Ltd 7 Balakrishnan and Parameswaran (2007). I am

Gowda, Aravind (2009): “Infosys to Increase Patent Sasken Communication grateful to M Parameswaran for the actual per-Filings”, Business Standard, 29 January, http:// Technologies Ltd 7formance of these tests.

w ww.business-standard.com/india/news/

Dabur India Ltd 6

9 Patents applied for in year ‘t’ is related to patents

infosys-to-increase-patent-filings/311913/ awarded in year ‘t+2’. Gem Energy Industry Ltd 6

(accessed on 20 July 2009). 10 Over the four-year period 2004-05 to 2007-08, Vittal Mallya Scientific

Jeffe, Adam B and Josh Lerner (2004): Innovation and R&D outsourcing has been growing at a rate of Research Foundation 6

Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System Is

about 82% per annum.

Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What

Alembic Ltd 5

11 The firm with the largest number of patents, Ran- to Do About It (Princeton: Princeton University

Glenmark Pharamaceuticals Ltd 5

baxy has been taken over by the Japanese MNC, Press).

Daichi Sankyo in June 2008. Ranbaxy will now Koshy, Jacob P and K P Narayana Kumar (2008): Tata Consultancy Services Ltd 5 have to be classified as an affiliate of its Japanese “CSIR Looks to Profit from Patents Stock”, Mint,

U & I Pharamaceuticals Ltd 5

parent and therefore will have to be declassified http://www.livemint.com/2008/10/05235209/

Cumulative total 1969-2007 335

as a domestic company, although this does not CSIR-looks-to-profit-from-pate.html (accessed on affect our present analysis. 18 July 2009). Source: Compiled from USPTO.

50 november 14, 2009 vol xliv no 46

DST vs CMIE

Texas Instruments, Incorporated 180 40000

International Business Machines Corporation 151

35000

General Electric Company 141

Stmicroelectronics Pvt Ltd 70 30000

Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft 46

Cypress Semiconductor Corp 28

Rs in million

25000

20000

Broadcom Corporation 27 15000

10000

5000

CMIE DST

Adobe Systems,Inc 11

Cadence Design Systems,Inc 9

Indian Explosives Ltd 8

Galaxy Surfactants Ltd 8

National Semiconductor Corporation 8

Monsanto Company, Inc 7

Aktiebolaget Astra 7

Hellosoft, Inc 6

Hetero Drugs Ltd 6

Lucent Technologies, Inc 6

Microsoft Corporation 6

Astrazeneca Ab 6

Aventis Pharama Deutschland Gmbh 5

Diebold Incorporated 5

Genesis Microchip, Inc 5

Hewlett-Packard Company 5

Iowa India Investments Company Ltd 5

Osram Sylvania, Inc 5

Redpine Signals, Inc 5

Sap Aktiengesellschaft 5

Silicon Automation Systems Ltd 5

Tektronix, Inc 5

Cumulative total 1969-2007 1,101

Source: Compiled from USPTO. Appendix Table 3: PCT Applications by Indian Inventors (2000-01-2006-07)

Individuals Legal Entity Total

2000-01 45 129 174

2001-02 49 189 238

2005-06 130 352 482

2006-07 144 390 534

2007-08 169 538 707

Source: Controller general of patents, designs and trademarks (various issues).

1990-91 1992-93 1994-95 1996-97 1998-99 2001-02 2002-03 Source: Own Compilation from DST (2006 and 2008) and CMIE, Prowess dataset.

Appendix Table 4: Distribution of PCT Applications from India-Technology-wide

Average Number 2001-05	Share (%)
I-Electrical engineering
Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy	131	1.08
Audio-visual technology	61	0.50
Telecommunication	183	1.51
Digital communication	107	0.88
Basic communication processes	142	1.17
Computer technology	438	3.60
IT methods for management	44	0.36
Semiconductors	32	0.26
II-Instruments
Optics	45	0.37
Measurement	201	1.65
Analysis of biological materials	102	0.84
Control	52	0.43
Medical technology	1,795	14.77
III-Chemistry
Organic fine chemistry	3,127	25.73
Biotechnology	714	5.87
Pharmaceuticals	2,872	23.63
Macromolecular chemistry, polymers	182	1.50
Food chemistry	393	3.23
Basic materials chemistry	547	4.50
Materials, metallurgy	323	2.66
Surface technology, coating	78	0.64
Micro-structural and nano-technology	3	0.02
Chemical engineering	351	2.89
Environmental technology	122	1.00
IV-Mechanical engineering
Handling	81	0.67
Machine tools	50	0.41
Engines, pumps, turbines	62	0.51
Textile and paper machines	70	0.58
Other special machines	178	1.46
Thermal processes and apparatus	59	0.49
Mechanical elements	54	0.44
Transport	73	0.60
V-Other fields
Furniture, games	31	0.26
Other consumer goods	53	0.44
Civil engineering	23	0.19
Total	12,155	100

Source: WIPO (2008).

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

november 14, 2009 vol xliv no 46

Indian Council of Social Science Research Western Regional Centre

The Indian Council of Social Science Research, Western Regional Centre (WRC) (covering Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Diu and Daman) has recently embarked on a series of academic initiatives with an aim to further strengthen the status of social science research in the region. The WRC-ICSSR encourages institutions, academics, doctoral candidates and other stakeholders from the region who are involved in teaching and undertaking social science research to apply for the following programmes.

Training programmes/Mentoring workshops/Research Methodology courses/Academic writing workshops/Development Conventions for capacity building of doctoral students, young faculty, and college teachers by undertaking/imparting training on issues related to social sciences research.

Visiting Fellows/Lecture series/Collaborative engagements will support inviting eminent scholars, academics and policymakers up to two weeks for delivering and interacting with students and faculty. This program will also facilitate institutions to engage with the WRC in undertaking collaborative academic projects.

Support for seminars/workshops/conferences and monographs aim at supporting proposals focusing on socially relevant contemporary themes.

Study Grant for Doctoral students provides financial assistance to Ph.D. scholars in social sciences for consulting libraries/archives/data centres in different cities/towns in India for collecting materials related to their research.

Support to Regional Journals aims at providing modest financial assistance to publish articles of contemporary interest for larger dissemination of scholarship through vernacular writings.

All proposals should have a strong academic rigor and will be subject to a review. Maximum grant to each proposal, except the ones meant for doctoral students should not exceed Rupees Seventy five thousand (Rs 75,000/-). Activities under these proposals should be completed before 31st March 2010. Proposals selected for funding will be informed latest by 15th January 2010. Completed proposals should reach the Hon. Director, Western Regional Centre, J P Naik Bhavan, Mumbai University campus, Vidyanagari, Mumbai 400098 on or before 20th December, 2009.