Patent Opposition in India

There have been many changes in the patent law regime in recent years in India, which led to an improvement in India’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index from 81 in 2015–16 to 46 in 2021. As per the Economic Survey of 2021–22, the number of patents filed and granted has also increased from 45,444 in 2016–17 to 58,502 in 2020–21 and from 9,847 in 2016–17 to 28,391 in 2020–21, respectively. However, this remarkable progress could not help in increasing the number of patents granted compared to China, the United States (US), Japan, and Korea. According to the 2021 statistics, India granted 30,074 patents, whereas the US granted 3,50,000 and China 5,30,000.

Considering the need of smoothening the patent grant framework, the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to the Prime Minister recently suggested increasing the number of patent officers and fixing six months as the time period for opposing the pending patent applications.