Prolonged delays in patent approvals are impeding the progress of companies, hindering their ability to introduce innovative products to the market, and deterring foreign investment, writes Aditya Rangroo
PIn the past few years, the Indian Patent Office has been grappling with several challenges with regard to operational woes, chronic understaffing, a high dependence on contractual examiners, and frequent delays in renewing contracts.
As a result, the patent examination process at the Indian Patent Office has slowed down, which is undermining 含羞草社区 ambition to become a global centre for innovation and intellectual property protection.
Although there has been a massive surge in patent filings in India in the past couple of years, the patent office has not been able to keep up with the pace due to a lack of qualified examiners and other operational issues.
Patent filings rise
India has witnessed huge growth in patent filings over the years, with 83,000 patents being filed during fiscal year 2022 to 2023 alone, translating to a growth rate of 24.6%, the highest in the past two decades, according to a Patenting Trends report released by Nasscom. The number of patents granted doubled to more than 100,000 between fiscal year 2019 and 2023, the report said.
The Indian Patent Office has recently demonstrated noteworthy progress in strengthening the nation’s IP landscape, according to Dinesh Jotwani, a patent attorney at Jotwani Associates in New Delhi.
“Patent filings have risen consistently at a rate of 10% to 15% per annum in recent years, culminating in an impressive 92,000 applications submitted in 2023 to 2024,” Jotwani told India Business Law Journal. “Furthermore, the Indian Patent Office has surpassed the milestone of granting over 100,000 patents, positioning India among the world’s top six jurisdictions for patent filings.”
Indian citizens for the first time filed 55.2% of patent applications in 2023, indicating an increase in domestic innovation. This is in line with a global trend of growing resident filings, which reached 71.2% in 2023, as per the Current Trends in 含羞草社区 Patenting Landscape report issued by think tank Observer Research Foundation. The report mentions that 含羞草社区 resident filing distribution has shifted in the past 10 years, increasing from 24.8% in 2013 to 55.2% in 2023.
About 90,298 patent applications were also filed in India in 2023, which indicates a 17.2% uptick from 2022, and a 25.2% increase since 2021. However, 含羞草社区 share of global origin filings was low, at 64,480 in 2023, up 15.7% from 2022 as per figures from the report.
Abhinav Saxena, an IPR advocate and co-founding partner at Saxenas & Kumar Law Chambers in Noida, says: “The Indian Patent Office has, over the last decade, made visible progress in terms of digitisation, manpower augmentation and attempts to reduce pendency. Also, from a policy standpoint, 含羞草社区 patent framework is broadly aligned with international norms, and the intent to strengthen the IP ecosystem is evident.”
According to the 2024-2025 annual report of the Office of the Controller General of Patents, the 2024-2025 fiscal year was a breakthrough year for 含羞草社区 IP ecosystem, with record numbers of patents, designs, trademarks, geographical indications and copyright filings. The total number of IP rights applications grew from 635,508 in the year before to 749,946.
Hurdles in patent examination
While patent filings may have seen an upward trajectory in India in the past few years, according to the data from the Indian Patent Office’s annual report, there has been a substantial decrease in the number of patents examined since the 2019 to 2020 fiscal year, in contrast to the steady rise in patent filings and grants in the past 10 years.
It is worth highlighting that about 85,000 patents were examined between 2018 and 2019. However, since then, the number of examinations has drastically plunged, reaching just more than 18,000 in 2023-2024, a year that was otherwise remarkable for the patent office.
Manisha Singh, the founding partner of LexOrbis in New Delhi, says: “The number of patent applications examined in the financial year 2024-2025 was about 15% of the applications, which were examined in a year before. The situation is almost the same in the current financial year, and we do not expect the number to rise by more than 10%.”
She says that the situation related to the examination of trademark applications is no different. “This situation has led to a dramatic erosion of work at major IP firms in India, and has eroded the confidence of applicants all across the world,” says Singh. “From the nine to 12 months examination period for patent applications in 2021-2022, we have come back to a 24 to 30 months timeframe.”
The rise in the number of patent filings in India may underscore the country’s emerging role as a vital player in global innovation. However, beneath these headline grabbing accomplishments, persistent and deeply rooted challenges threaten to undermine the gains that have been so hard-won.
Jotwani says that, despite the escalating volume of applications, the Indian Patent Office currently employs only about 500 examiners, when in reality the workload demands more than double that number; more than 1,000 examiners are required to ensure timely processing and maintain the integrity of the system.
“Alarmingly, the majority of these examiners are engaged on short-term contracts, resulting in significant variance in the quality, consistency and reliability of their examination reports,” says Jotwani. “The backlog now stands at nearly 250,000 applications, representing an enormous bottleneck that stifles innovation and undermines the confidence of stakeholders in the Indian IP regime.”
Pravin Anand, managing partner at Anand and Anand in New Delhi, says the number of first examination reports (FERs) has dropped from 126,003 FERs disposed of in 2023-2024 to 40,606 FERs disposed of in 2024-2025.
“The main reason for such shortages arises from not doing recruitments properly,” says Anand. “The Indian Patent Office currently has a team of 860 examiners and controllers. On the global front, in a field where China has employed 13,704 employees as examiners, we as a country are falling behind not only in employment standards but also in comparison with the backlogs and lack of training needs for complex tech and procedural issues.”
Saxena, of Saxenas & Kumar, highlights areas such as software-implemented inventions, electronics, AI-related technologies and interdisciplinary inventions as contributing to the slowdown. He says these applications require deeper technical scrutiny and more detailed examination, which naturally impacts examination timelines.
Considering these issues, the slowdown in patent examination does not appear to stem from a single cause. It is the result of multiple structural and procedural factors converging at the same time.
Another contributing issue, which Saxena underlines, is capacity and continuity. “While recruitment for examiners has taken place, frequent transfers, uneven examiner workloads and limited continuity between examination and hearing stages can slow down overall disposal,” he says. “In many cases, matters effectively undergo re-evaluation at the hearing stage, adding to delays.”
Impact on businesses
Even though India has so far processed 81.4% of patent applications, there are still concerns and challenges. In 2023, the number of pending applications increased by 7.3%, and first-office actions and final decisions had an average pendency duration of about 50 months. This means that India has one of the world’s slowest patent offices, which impacts businesses.
The dependency on fewer than 500 permanent examiners, when the operational requirement exceeds 1,000, has forced the Indian Patent Office to depend heavily on contract examiners, who are now responsible for 70% to 80% of the examination workload.
However, these contract examiners typically receive only one month of training, vastly insufficient compared to the year-long preparation afforded to permanent staff. As a result, the quality of their work is inconsistent, and frequent delays in contract renewals, often extending for three to six months, can bring the examination process to a standstill, exacerbating the backlog.
The implications for businesses are stark: Waiting periods for patent decisions now routinely exceed four years, during which applicants must pay maintenance fees ranging from INR4,000 (USD43) to INR40,000 annually.
The understaffing within the Indian Patent Office combined with reliance on contractual examiners and delays in contract renewals and onboarding has a direct impact on businesses seeking timely and predictable patent protection, says Richa Pandey, a partner at CMS IndusLaw in Gurugram.
She says there are not enough permanent examiners and controllers, and as a result patent examinations take longer. These delays affect businesses by slowing product launches, licensing deals, investment and the enforcement of patent rights.
Another concern is delays at the Trade Marks Office (TMO), which are even more severe when compared to patent examinations. Patent exams may be moving faster than those at the TMO, but the system remains fragmented. According to the Indian Patent Office’s 2021-2022 annual report, 47 of the 61 examiners employed by the Trademark Registry worked under contract.
The courts have also raised concerns about the legality of orders passed by contractual staff who are not part of the regular Indian Patent Office cadre. As a result, some patent grants or refusals may be sent back for review or reconsideration. This creates uncertainty for businesses, as patent rights may not be final or reliable.
“Contractual examiners are recruited through external agencies such as the NTA [National Testing Agency] and QCI [Quality Council of India], and issues such as irregular recruitment processes, delayed onboarding, and gaps in contract renewal have increased application backlogs,” says Pandey. “When examiners are not appointed or retained on time, applications remain pending for longer periods.”
Government measures
Inconsistency and delays in patent exams have created a gloomy picture for businesses, and the government has been urged to implement measures to tackle this challenge. Although efforts are underway to recruit full-time examiners at the Indian Patent Office, with more than 407 new examiners being welcomed in January 2025, the absence of a consistent and rigorous hiring process continues to undermine both the quality and efficiency of patent examination.
Deepak Sriniwas, managing partner at Rajeshwari & Associates in New Delhi, says the Indian Patent Office needs a structured, continuous and transparent recruitment process. Examiner hiring should be conducted at regular intervals with clear eligibility standards, rigorous technical and legal training, and mentorship under senior examiners. Retention mechanisms, career progression pathways, and competitive remuneration are equally important to reduce attrition. A stable and skilled examiner workforce is also essential for maintaining examination quality and institutional memory.
In terms of government measures, Sriniwas says the government should adopt a holistic IP administration strategy rather than treating patents and trademarks in silos.
“Key measures include unified capacity planning across IP offices, shared digital infrastructure, standardised performance metrics, and policy-level accountability,” he says. “While patent examination is relatively faster than trademark processing, both systems suffer from fragmentation and reactive decision making. Long-term institutional reform, sustained funding, and governance oversight are essential to ensure that efficiency gains are durable and not temporary.”
Anand says the Indian government should prioritise hiring and training more examiners for the Trademark Registry, where pendency exceeds 550 to 615 days for new applications, while sustaining the patent office’s momentum through continued digitisation and expedited processes.
He suggests implementing rule amendments to shorten opposition periods from four to two months, mandating intra-departmental hearings before judicial escalation, and enforcing strict timelines for examinations, such as within 30 days for new filings. He also says that permanent staffing over contractual roles, coupled with regular training at institutions such as the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Intellectual Property Management, would build capacity and minimise bottlenecks seen in hearings of more than 720 days.
Slowing momentum
The slowdown in patent examination is a significant concern. While earlier years saw accelerated processing due to policy pushes and contractual hiring, the momentum has not been sustained.
Factors such as examiner attrition, administrative bottlenecks and increased filing volumes without proportional capacity expansion have contributed to the decline. This slowdown undermines confidence in the system and negates earlier efficiency gains, making long-term patent planning difficult for applicants.
“Retention mechanisms, career progression pathways and competitive remuneration are equally important to reduce attrition,” says Rajeshwari’s Sriniwas. “A stable, skilled examiner workforce is essential for maintaining examination quality and institutional memory.”
To build on this, CMS IndusLaw’s Pandey says the government should prioritise a unified, technology-driven approach that addresses the root cause of fragmentation and backlog across the system.
“The government must aggressively implement technology to reduce manual intervention and address severe delays in the trademark office,” she says. “All offices should operate on a high-speed IT platform for filing and all processes. The recent AI-powered TMPilot is a step forward in that direction.”
