IoT: Revolutionizing patent landscape in India

Internet of things (IoT), has become the central topic of discussion in recent years for all industries. IoT has the proven capability to stand for various industrial growing needs. The collected data from a single source has to transferor pass over a network, and this need is fulfilled by the Internet of things. IoT offers a great combination of sensors, devices, a pile of data, and connectivity as a package to work efficiently and intelligently without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has made a promising statement that the revenue by IoT will dramatically increase to $7 trillion globally and $9.2 billion in India by 2020. The exponential growth of IoT is observed especially in wireless communication, micro-electromechanical systems, and digital electronics over the last few years. The snowball effect of loT in India has drawn attention to its great use in many industries.

Many industries have implemented IoT due to its enormous benefits including electricity, electrical, transportation, healthcare, material processing, automobiles, etc. loT can easily manage and control the infrastructure of any industrial sector. For example, a diary industry project was implemented in Bhilawadi – Maharashtra wherein disease and location was tracked at real-time by sensor tagged to cows. Nowadays in India, everyone is using the "Aarogya Setu” App - Bluetooth based technology, for assessing major coronavirus risk based on the user’s location and which in turn is effective in lowering the number of coronavirus cases.

The spike of Indian patent filling on loT had increased ten times in the year 2015 compared to the year 2009. The rise of patent filling in India indicates the promising future and encouragement for further technological advancements in IoT. Furthermore, looking at the break-down of the filing it is evident that around 95 percent of the patents comprise various processes and machinery implemented across the different domains in terms of specific applications of loT.

Approximately 40 percent of the Indian patent filing has been done by US-based players, accounting for which electronic, electrical, and semiconductor equipment manufacturers have jointly shown their dominance with a 50 percent share of the patent filings. Major companies are actively filing patents in the domain including Samsung, MI, TCS, Wipro, Microsoft, HCL, Ericsson, Qualcomm, Intel, Accenture, Philips, and Huawei. Interestingly, 17 percent and 5 percent of patents are filed by independent Indian inventors and academic institutions respectively.

The "Make in India" program has been implemented by the Indian government to boost the growth of manufacturing infrastructure in India, which has fully embraced a fusion of industries and loT technology. The department of Heavy Industry, Government of India has expressed an interest in SAMARTH-Udyog Bharat 4.0 as “Industry 4.0” development, with the objective of applying the technology in the Indian Capital Goods Sector. Moreover, Indian government has undertaken practical Smart Cities Mission initiative for building 100 smart cities across India. An association of Engineering Export Promotion Council of India and the Department of Heavy Industries (DHI) is making every endeavor to expand the manufacturing to a ‘Smart and intelligent Manufacturing’ hub. IT industry's apex body has predicted the patent filing to grow, and will mostly be driven by healthcare, automation, manufacturing, and supply chain, 5G, and security systems.

By all counts, and with proven examples, it has been demonstrated that benefits from loT will play a significant role in revolutionizing the patent landscape in India. On considering the industrial and consumer point of view, the Indian government's initiatives such as Digital India, Make-in-India, Smart Cities projects are sowing the seeds for the establishment of loT technology in India. Various industries are already reaping the benefits from loT, as well as capitalizing on the top position by executing the right IP strategy and portfolio management.

By Manoj Poonia, Vice President, Effectual Services