Significance and Factors Hampering Patents Commercialization in India

Abstract

As per the Patents Act, 1970 one of the patentability criteria is ‘the invention should have industrial application’. The
patents’ rights conferred to the patentee are merely not to enjoy the monopoly over the invention, but the patentee has to ensure
the use of technology for the societal and economic benefit of the country. Once the patent is granted, the patentee has to ensure
the working of the patent in India on a commercial scale. In return, the patentee gets his due amount for his hard work and
efforts rendered for the intellectual creativity. Current paper focuses on the working/non-working profile of the patents granted
to Indian Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and National Research Labs (NRLs) in the country from January 2010 to
December 2017. The data has been procured from the prescribed ‘Form-27’ by the Indian Patent Office, which the patentee is
required to file every year before the end of financial year, post grant of the patent. The research depicts in how many patentees
submitted requisite ‘Form-27’, and in how many cases patents granted, worked or didn’t work. Moreover, various reasons cited
for the non-working of the patents have also been identified. The issues being encountered with by the patentees have been
identified and measures thereof required to be taken, at the individual level, institutional level and government level, have also
been suggested.