Acute shortage of patent agents in India

Venture Intelligence reports:

Businessworld has an article on how a new breed of scientifically qualified patent agents are making life easier for companies that are looking protect their IP.

But India is facing an acute shortage of patent agents and does not have many qualified in the sciences. There are only 928 registered patent agents in the country, but merely 250 are said to be practising actively. Even less are from a science background. That’s too small a number to cater to India’s increasing investments in research. Last year alone, 27,846 patents were published in India. And in the last three years, it is estimated that over 50,000 patent applications were filed and the number is rising. A patent usually takes about 18 months to be published.

Tags: patent, invention, india, IP