India falls behind in patents race

new delhi: india is fourth among developing countries in filing for international patents. south korea occupies the top slot followed by china and south africa. south korea has filed 2,318 applications under the patent co-operation treaty of the paris convention, china has filed 1,670 applications, south africa 418 and india 316. the government aided r&d organisation, council of scientific and industrial research (csir) is the second-highest applicant in 2001 with 89 applications. china’s biowindow gene development inc is first with 921 applications. all pertain to full length human genes. the top ten list reveals that south korea is aggressive on the it front, china is going full steam into human genomics, and india is opting for the bt-pt (biotech, pharma tech) route. this is borne out by the fact that apart from csir, it is only companies like ranbaxy laboratories (23 ), dr reddy’s research foundation (16), biocon india (12), lupin laboratories (7) and orchid chemicals & pharmaceuticals (7) that have applied for patents. data on the international applications received by the international bureau of wipo during 2001 shows that csir is chasing foreign patents with zeal. starting from 58 in 1995-96, it has climbed to 454 in 2000-01 and increased to 590 in 2001-02.