Research in India, bounty for US

IS THE high-tech research done in India by foreign companies more for use in the US than in India? Some experts seem to think so.

Published on: Oct 16, 2006, 15:07:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

IS THE high-tech research done in India by foreign companies more for use in the US than in India? Some experts seem to think so.

A study conducted by the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTAD) says between 1990 and 2002, 266 patents were filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) by companies for research done in India. More than half of these patents from India in the US were taken out by foreign companies. Most are for high-tech products that have a huge market in the US.

"The cost of research in India is one-tenth of the cost in the US. Therefore these companies have set up their R&D centres in India," said Dr A.D. Damodaran, former director, CSIR Regional Research Laboratory in Trivandrum.

Rajesh Kochar, former director, NISTAD, said: "The West is deriving financial gains from our scientific know-how." Done for the office of the principal scientific adviser to the government and finalised this year, the study says most patents registered in the US from a foreign country during 1990-2002 were from India -- 266.

followed by the electronics, pesticides, agrochemical products and food-and-beverages sectors. Of the 59 Indian firms involved, most patents are in the name of the parent foreign company. In all, these companies own 96 patents as against 93 by the institutions owned by Indians. The rest are owned by Indian nationals.

Compared to foreign companies operating in India, the record of Indian companies, including government institutes, at the USPTO has been dismal. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) got some patents for hybrid varieties of plants but they do not have much market value in the US. “Indian institutions still lack the R&D expertise of established MNC foreign firms in matching fields,” said Damodaran.

The study mentions the poor innovation record of Indian universities but says most of the foreign companies relied on foreign universities for providing scientific inputs for research in India.

Dr Damodaran said the interest of foreign companies in Indian researchers saw an exponential rise after 1999 when India implemented a new TRIPS-consistent IPR regime.

Companies like Texas Instruments of the US obtained 40 patents, Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft of Germany obtained 30 and General Electrical Company of the US obtained 26 patents after 1999. “Some of the companies had only a small set-up before 1995. The result points to high degree of R&D and innovation activity of MNCs in India in the current period,” said Sujit Chatterjee of NISTAD in the study.
chetan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk LIVE and more across India.