As many as 1.38 lakh patents were filed by Indian companies from 2015 to 2022, according to the latest report by Nasscom – India Patents Report, Innovations From India: Transcending Barriers. The report is part of the series of Nasscom’s Emerging Technology-focused reports to understand how Indian technology companies create IP assets in their largest market. This also marks the start of the IP charter for FY2023 and deep-dive analysis into the tech patents filed in India.

The report says the US remains a key export market for India. India domiciled companies filed over 9,500 patents in the US between 2015 and 2021, increasing ~47 per cent between 2015 and 2019. The US accounted for ~62 per cent of tech exports in FY2022 and would continue to drive the share of tech patents. About 65 per cent of the total patents filed in the US in 2020/21 by India domiciled companies were in the technology domain. 

Indian companies and startups filed over 60 per cent of the technology patents, of which 16.7 per cent were filed by individual inventors/academia-research, which witnessed the highest growth of 60 per cent. Overall, 400 technology patents were filed by Indian startups from 2015 to 2021.

About 50 per cent of the patents filed from 2015 to 2021 were related to emerging technologies. AI patents more than doubled from 2015 to 2021. About 1,300 patents were filed in the AI domain from 2015 to 2021. “AI continues to lead in total patents filed under various emerging technology domains, and ML patents grew by 2X, maintaining its lead in AI,” the report said.