India's poor record at patents does not improve much in 2009

The Yearly Review of the International Patent System, for 2009, has just been issuedby the World Inntellectual Property Organization.

For the first time in its history, the number of patent applications is down on a previous year (primarily due to the recession, apparently).

At the same time, patent applications from China went UP 29.1%, and it now ranks 5th in the world in terms of its patent applications.

By contrast, India does not appear in the top 15 countries.

China's patent applications went from 2,512 in 2005 to 7.906 last year. India's patent applications in 2005 were 679, and moved to 1,070 last year .

Universities from the USA continue to dominate patent applications from among universities worldwide (nine of the top ten, 18 of the top 20, 22 of the top 30, 28 of the top 40, and 32 of the top 50 are from the USA).

The University of California not only topped the list from the universities' sector, but was also the only one from that category to make it to the overall top 100 applicants - all the others are companies (a sad state of affairs for the globe, as that means more and more IP continues to belong to private companies - which will inevitably increase even further the gap between the rich and the poor).