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: While Ranbaxy had 320 IPO published patent applications during 2005-07, Dr Reddy’s had 315 during the same period.

Interestingly, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories files a large proportion of its patent applications with the IPO, while Ranbaxy Labs files most of its applications in jurisdictions outside India, the report said. This could be because protection of Ranbaxy’s products and processes abroad would have been more crucial for its business, as compared to Dr Reddy’s.

The pharma sector is also concerned that the Indian patent legislation makes it difficult for it to obtain patents because according to the law, incremental (or minor) innovations are not given patents unless such innovations have a significantly enhanced therapeutic effect (or biological efficacy) than the original drug. “The threshold for incremental invention is very high in India as compared to that in other countries. Besides, incremental inventions of many pharma companies are usually rejected by the IPO due to lack of significant efficacy as compared to the known drug. This might be deterring other companies from filing (patent applications in India),” Chopra said.

There are also very few biotech inventions in the country due to tough patent laws which make it mandatory to quote the source of origin of the biological material in the patent application. This is done to give pecuniary benefits to communities that share biological material. “But most companies take biological material from the vendor and not from a community, and therefore they do not know the origin of the material. This makes it difficult for them to file patent applications,” Chopra said.

Automobiles

Another dampener is the patent filing trend in the auto sector. During January 2005-December 2007, TVS Motors had the maximum number of patent applications published by the IPO (121). TVS Motors was followed by Tata Motors (66), Bajaj Auto (29), and Mahindra & Mahindra (27), according to the report.

Like in the pharma sector, the local toppers in the auto sector fared badly in patent filings abroad. This can be seen from the fact that TVS Motors and Tata Motors hardly have any patent filings in foreign jurisdictions. But Bajaj Auto and Mahindra & Mahindra have filed patent applications outside India, including in the US and Europe.