Patents as a Yardstick for Economic Growth: Case of Indian R&D System

The novel creations by humans were well appreciated and acknowledged, but there exist several lacunae such as illegal copying. These malpractices were high and went on without restrictions. Moreover, with the passage of time, the significance of innovations and applications and their protection, both, increased. The fastchanging pace of global trades and business practices has given rise to a global cutting-edge competition and short product cycle with rapid changes in technology. This competition has laid a great responsibility on Research and Development (R&D) to build new ideas—creating an Intellectual property (IP). It is also said that that is an idea “owned” by an individual or company and is therefore protectable under the law. IP law aims at encouraging innovation by giving the creators of new ideas ample time to profit from their ideas and recuperates their development costs.


Introduction
Intellectual property (IP) includes rights to literary, artistic, inventions in all fields of human endeavor, scientific disclosures, industrial designs, trademarks, commercial names, etc. IPR can be held only by legal entities, i.e., who have the right to sell and purchase a property. IP allows the creators/owners of patents, trademarks, or copyrighted works to get benefits from their creation. Such rights are outlined in Art. 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for the right to benefit from the protection of moral and material interests resulting from authorship of scientific, literary, or artistic productions [1] (Figure 1).

IP rights at a glance
Intellectual properties denote novel makings of brain like invention, literary and art works, symbol(s), name(s), images, etc. generally seen in business. Intellectual property is categorized as follows: Industrial property Patents, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications Copyright and related rights Literary works-novels, poems and plays; films, music, art works (e.g., drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures) and architectural design. It also includes performances, recordings, and broadcastings

Patent
Patent-an exclusive right given for an invention(s), which may be a product or a process. To get a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in a patent application. This right is provided for 20 years to the inventions which prove novelty, inventive step, and industrial application.
There are inventions which are non-patentable which are well described (u/s 3 a of Indian Patent Act 1970) [2]: • Anything frivolous • Contrary to law/morality or injurious to health • A mere discovery of scientific principles, formulations, theories, etc.
• A mere discovery of a new property of a known substance • Substance obtained with mere admixture resulting only in aggregation of properties of components • A mere arrangement/rearrangement/duplication of known devices • A method of agriculture or surgical entity • Any process of medical, surgical, curative, prophylactic diagnostic, therapeutic, or other treatment of human beings or processes similar to the treatment of animals to free them from disease • Plants and animals as a whole or any parts thereof other than microorganisms • Mathematical or business methods or computer programs • Literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work or any esthetic creation • A presentation of information • Topography of integrated circuits • Inventions related to atomic energy

Copyright and related rights
Copyright/author's rights-A legal term to describe the rights conferred for novel literary and artistic works created by an author/creator. Inventions that come under copyrights include books, musical compositions, portraits, films, computer programs, information databases, commercial advertisements, geographical maps, technical drawings, etc. Exhaustive lists of works covered by copyright are usually not to be found in legislation.
The two kinds of rights covered under copyright include: Economic rights: It allows the owner to produce monetary rewards from the application of respective works Moral rights: It protects the non-economic interests of the author(s). The economic rights the owner of a work can exclude or allow: • reproduction in any form • public performance (play or musical work) • recordings • broadcasting • translation into other languages • adaptation (novel into a film/screenplay) The Berne Convention is a landmark in copyright protection, where the copyright is granted automatically without registration. Most of the nations have a systematic structure for the registration of innovative works. Such registration arrangements can assist in resolving disputes over ownership or creation and facilitate the financial transactions and/or transfer of rights [3].

Trademark
A trademark is a "distinctive sign" that identifies certain goods or services as those produced or provided by a specific person or enterprise. Trademarks may be obtained for the brand name of a particular product or service.
The significance of trademark is mentioned as follows: i. TM projects the actual origin of goods and services.
ii. It guarantees the identity of the origin of goods and services.
iii.It stimulates further buying tendencies.
iv. TM acts as a badge of loyalty.
v. It may enable consumer to make a lifestyle or fashion statement.

Registered design rights
Industrial designs constitute the esthetic aspect of designs. It comprises of 2D and 3D structures of articles. The owner of registered design rights prevents others from making, selling, licensing, and importing or copying the designs. The industrial design concerns more the aspect and esthetic of the device and also in the life sciences and biotechnology field.

Geographical indications
The geographical indications (GIs) are the signs used on the products that have some specific place of origin. The quality and characters of a product must be essentially due to its place of origin. It includes agri-products, foods, alcoholic drinks, handicraft items, and industrial products.

Implication of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Established in 1970, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an international organization that ensures the maintenance of rights of inventors and owners of intellectual property worldwide, and they are appraised monetarily for their originality [4]. This international agency is recognized as an agency fostering creations of innovators, thus assisting the scientific world and literature. WIPO provides an edge to the dynamic industrial world by facilitating several revolutionary measures to international trade. WIPO acts meticulously with its member nations toward a guarantee that intellectual property system remains firm and in the benefit of IP assets across the globe.
Intellectual property (IP) rights are recognized as the yardstick of technoeconomic growth of the country. This is because IP is directly proportional to the R&D divisions of the economy. Patents are a critical competitive arm in this cutting-edge competition, and a huge investment is needed for promoting and nurturing IP. Envisaging such facts, government's role, and initiative for an exhaustive environment are needed which would encourage innovation and commercialization [5]. In short, the economic benefits of the patent system are derived from its roles in promoting innovation and encouraging investment, economic growth, knowledge sharing, and the efficient use of resources. In

India and IP system
India is a significant member of World Trade Organization (WTO) from 1995. It was a connection established to establish harmonization with IP standards [4]. The country signed different pacts to be included with: • The Berne Convention, Copyrights Act, and Information Technology Act, 2000 This activity aims at establishing a fact that IP is an asset and it promotes innovation and encourages entrepreneurship across the society. This organization also aims to ensure proper review, awareness, and enforcement of IP Laws [6].

Research method
In this study, the analysis of patents' productivity was carried out using data from WIPO. The Total Patents Filed (direct and PCT entries) and Total Patent Grant (direct and PCT entries) were taken and analyzed for the year 2012-2017.  China  652,777 217,105 825,136 207,688 928,177 233,228 1,101,864 359,316 1,338,503 404,208 1,381,594 420,144   North  America   578,100 275,000 606,400 301,700 614,300 324,400 626,400 320,600 640,300 329,500  The above Figures 2 and 3 clearly depict the state of countries with reference to filing and granting of patents. Considering the state of filing, China was the leading country among all, whereas North America, United States of America, and Europe were lagging behind. On the other hand, the patent granted state projects a similar picture, where China was again leading in patent granted. This figure shows that approximately 46% of the patent filed were granted. On analyzing the average no. of patents filing vs. granting (2012-2017), it was found that Russia was leading with 79% patent granted, whereas India was far behind with only 15% granted patents. It clearly shows the state of innovations and its commercialization (Figure 4).

Conclusions
IPR is an important issue which raises a picture of innovation index and potential for commercialization of novel items. WIPO is an establishment that provides an edge to this regulatory system of innovation and legality. WIPO generates information regarding different kinds of IPR and their data with reference to fining and granting. This brief study provides an insight to the current state of patents (filed and granted) and their implication on globalization. In public, especially the innovators, the knowledge of IPR should be provided which would act as an act of mentoring them. It would provide the scope for protection of IPR and thus will create an avenue for protection of IPR and commercialization. This way, such activities would lead the country's economy with a fast pace.