India must go for the jugular, the IP-5
Just as India asserts its stakes in the Security Council, it must expand its patent office to join the IP-5 club.
India has successfully managed the COVID-19 global pandemic domestically and helped numerous countries worldwide. Having developed strong socio-economic credentials in the comity of nations, India is now in a position to endorse traditional medicine and prevent the preventable patent wars, as India did with turmeric. To that end, India has now established the World Health Organisation’s Global Centre for Traditional Medicine and thereby has made itself a key player in this domain. This practice of establishing key intergovernmental bodies in India and positioning the country at the centre of various global pursuits needs to be replicated in many domains, especially where India can take a global leadership role.
Generating and protecting intellectual property, without doubt, is a cornerstone of our Aatmanirbhar Bharat ambition. However, there are systemic issues that need to be addressed. "Why India Needs to Urgently Invest in its Patent Ecosystem", a white paper published by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, has aptly articulated one systemic issue: the necessity to expand the Indian Patent Office and make it more efficient. Things have progressed in India’s favour, but there is a long way to go, and we will have to keep preparing for the longer marathon.
In the recently released Global Innovation Index 2022 (GII-2022), India has steeply climbed from 81st position in 2015 to 40th position in 2022. The GII is curated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a specialised agency of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN-ECOSOC), one of the six principal organs of the UN. In 2022, India ranked first in patent applications among lower-middle-income countries and topped the list in Central and South Asia. India’s excellent performance has been made possible due to favourable governmental policies for R&D and manufacturing. Keeping with this upward march, the Indian Government is now endeavouring to make it into GII’s top 25.
However, aspiring to enter the top-25 cannot be of interest only to the Ministry of Commerce. A whole-of-government approach is a must. Why so? Firstly, India aims to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2047, and merely surpassing the status of low-income economies should not be enough. Becoming an upper-middle-income economy and topping GII in that category needs a comprehensive governmental strategy. Secondly, many countries in South and Central Asia are under economic stress, and, with due respect to their aptitudes they are not globally competitive in terms of their innovation output. So, we must not again be pleased with doing better than them.
India's patent filing statistics had several chronic issues. The most notable aspect was the higher number of patents applied for by non-Indian entities in the Indian office compared to domestic applicants. 2022 saw a pleasant reversal of this situation, when the Office noted that Indian applicants grew over their non-Indian counterparts for the first time in 11 years. The number of patents filed has increased by more than 50% - from 42763 in 2014-15 to 66440 in 2021-22. During the same period, the number of patents granted has increased nearly fivefold, from 5,978 in 2014-15 to 30,474 in 2021-22. These are positive trends. However, we must acknowledge that our statistics lag behind those of the world’s top 5 IP applicants.
This gap must give us sleepless nights because we cannot face Abhimanyu’s fate, who, during the 18-day war, was able to pierce through the Chakra Vyuha but could not escape it. We will positively enter the top 3 economies of the world in the next 10 years, but we must do all that it takes to maintain our position in these rankings. And what would it take? Knowing how to generate intellectual property, protect it, and reign over its global governance.
India aims to become a USD 10 trillion national economy by 2034 and a USD 1 trillion digital economy by 2026. Indian states, some more than others, will have to overcome the habit of giving doles for myopic electoral goals and begin contributing to these national targets. To that end, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh are aiming to generate USD 0.5 to 1 trillion in gross state domestic product during the 2025-2035 period. These contributions will happen only by bettering ease-of-doing-business parameters and encouraging domestic IP-generating entities. Returning to the reforms, a patent office that fails to conduct geopolitical and geoeconomic analyses of the global IP governance landscape will only under-deliver.
India's security planners now realise that they cannot merely view present-day national security needs within the context of military security. National security also entails dominance over technological capabilities and their security, dexterous foreign policy, and homeland and economic security. To that end, India must not only set its sights on the Security Council, which it deserves, but also on another lesser-known group of five.
In 2007, these five – the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), the European Patent Office, and the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) - together formed a combined group known as the ‘IP-5’. These five contribute to more than 80% of all global patent applications and 95% of applications filed under the 1970 Patent Cooperation Treaty. Over the past 15 years, the IP-5 has harmonised the patents filed among its members and promoted a cost-effective, user-friendly, and efficient patent application and granting mechanism. In doing so, this influential but reclusive body has governed the global IP landscape.
So how did these five end up joining hands in IP-5? These five patent offices have been post-World War II champions of Industry 3.0 technologies, medical instruments, precision instruments, computers, digital communications, audio-visual devices, electrical and electronic gadgets, transportation systems, and energy technologies. Except for China, the remaining four of the IP-5 are the US's strategic partners, many of which are from NATO; therefore, their collective partnership has benefited them. China cannot be seen in isolation. Its economic growth and manufacturing capacities have transpired with wilful investments from the other four.
India will not supplant China’s status as a global manufacturing hub without careful consideration. We will be innovative in our approach to utilise resources that are inaccessible to us. To put it simply, we will focus more on sodium-ion over lithium-ion for energy storage, and on solar over fossil fuels, and so on. India's growth will happen from our innate worldviews and comprehension. We will champion technologies that will have constructive consequences. To that end, a larger Indian patent office must also become India's global IP governance patrol, directly contributing to our geostrategic decision-making. This thought has not been conveyed by Indian opinion-makers.
The United Nations, which has had a long presence in India, never established a WIPO external office. Outside its main headquarters in Geneva, WIPO has been running external offices in Singapore, Russia, Nigeria, Japan, China, Brazil, and Algeria. An India aiming to enter the top 25 of the GII rankings should invite WIPO to set up an external office. Not only is this a futuristic step, but it will also have historical significance for a WIPO office in India.
The first president of ECOSOC, the parent organisation of WIPO, was Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar. Mudaliar was a brilliant technocrat, the last Diwan of the Kingdom of Mysore, and a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council of India, with a portfolio in commerce and supplies. He was instrumental in establishing the Council on Industrial and Scientific Research in 1942, which today consistently ranks among India's top patent applicants. Despite an exceptional relationship with a then-new ECOSOC, India could not capitalise on this early lead. Chinmaya Gharekhan, a well-known diplomat, was the only Indian presiding over ECOSOC in 1990. In contrast, next-door Pakistan has chaired ECOSOC six times but has not reaped any socio-economic benefits from it. India's apathetic outlook and its ignorance or unwillingness to make an impact on global IP governance kept our socio-economic progress sluggish. Only time will tell what we have lost all this time. At times, it is essential to acknowledge that we have been disoriented, only to overcome it.
Even a larger and efficient patent office will not help India’s cause if it cannot join global IP governance bodies and make India’s impact felt. The expanded office must strive to become a platform for economic and technological diplomacy and a sentinel informing our national geostrategic decision-making. A true Vishwaguru knows how to generate, protect and regulate knowledge.
The original piece was published in the October 2, 2022, issue of The Hindu Business Line.
