Enabling Capacity Building to help India become the world leaderin Intellectual Property Rights

The government of India has introduced several schemes and initiatives to bolster the startup ecosystem, with a strong emphasis on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Several scientific and technological developments have created a need for a robust patent system. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of patent applications, from 45,444 in 2016-17 to 66,440 in 2021-22. Similarly, the number of patents granted in India increased from 9,847 to 30,074 during the same period. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in the share of residents in the applications from less than 30 percent in 2016-17 to 44.5 percent in 2021-22. Despite these improvements, India lags behind its global peers. In 2020, the number of patents filed in India was 56,771, merely 4 percent of China, where 14.97 lakh applications were filed, and 9.5 percent of the US, where 5.97 lakh applications were filed in the same year. Similarly, the patents granted in India were 26361 compared to 5.3 lakh in China and 3.5 lakh in the US. Moreover, in India, it takes about 58 months on average to dispose of a patent application compared to about 20 months in China and 23 months in the US. The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (O/o CGPDTM), under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), is the leading authority for developing India’s Intellectual Property ecosystem. Its goal is to position India as a global leader in Intellectual Property Rights within five years. Prof (Dr.) Unnat P Pandit, the current CGPDTM, has leveraged Mission Karmayogi to
address these challenges. On March 6, 2023, a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed among the Capacity Building Commission (CBC), CGPDTM, and CEGIS (Not-forProfit Public Policy Organisation) to create a structured approach to capacity building in IP Offices. The goal of this engagement was to build the capacity of its people to enhance comprehension of their respective roles and understand the competency-based gaps to leverage it as a platform to learn and engage based on their specific competency gaps. To facilitate this engagement, a focussed 7-member Capacity Building Unit (CBU) was formed within the IP Office, thereby institutionalizing this commitment as an ongoing process rather than a one-time effort.

The formation of the Capacity Building Unit and its institutionalization is an initiative under Mission Karmayogi to ensure sustainability around the overall concept of competency-based capacity building. As part of this, an Annual Capacity Building Plan (ACBP) was prepared for this, focussing on Competency mapping from the demand side and understanding the gaps through
assessments and addressing these gaps through several interventions under the supply side of training delivery and creating pathways for learning. Developing an Annual Capacity Building Plan at the organizational level helped leverage performance support interventions to enhance the employee experience. As a milestone achievement, a competency framework was mainstreamed for all positions within the Patents and Trademarks departments through consultative workshops and intensive focus group discussions. This helped delineate roles and activities through the Work allocation order (Job description) and identify the requisite competencies. This identification of
competencies helped map domestic and international training to enhance position-specific competencies. These were further boosted through the functional and domain training organized by the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO), with support from CBC

These initiatives have led to an improved understanding of position holdersʼ roles and a systematic rollout of the capacity-building initiative. The organization averaged 41,933 hours and 32 minutes of total institutional learning. In 2023-24 alone, we focused on the capacity building of 995 IP officials. On average, 44 learning hours were dedicated to each of these 941 IP officials onboarded in IP MDO (technical position holders). In 2023, patent filings increased by 17% to 90,309, while the average time for patent grants reduced to 53 months compared to 68.4 months in 2014, with fresh patent applications being granted in just 22 months. The CEGIS team, in 2023, laid the groundwork for the competency framework, setting the stage for the organization’s corporate governance journey envisioned by the CGPDTM.

What has worked well:
As an overall impact of capacity building and operational efficiency in IP in the year 2023, patent filings increased by 17% to 90,309, while the average time for patent grants reduced to 53 months compared to 68.4 months in 2014, with fresh patent applications being granted in just 22 months.

• Spending more time in the problem space than the solution space: The team spent a lot
more time in the first year interacting with people internally to understand the barriers in
delivering both the citizen services and the organizational mandates. This allowed the team
to understand the IP ecosystem thoroughly and then frame their competency framework
offerings to solve the prioritized problems.

• Generating demand and negotiating a buy-in from the organization: CBC and Dr. Panditʼs
leadership played and continues to play an essential role in Capacity-building work at IP.
The timely interactions with CEGIS and CBC on implementing several key enablers of
capacity building helped align the expected outcomes of this partnership.

• Adopting a systems approach to capacity building: The problem-solving phase highlighted
several problems beyond the scope of ACBP and the capability of the CBU. Accepting this,
the team adopted a systems approach of defining the specific number of the issues and their
interconnections that this engagement will solve. This helped us manage expectations, set a roadmap, and focus our work on a bounded set of organizational development problems.

• CBU Ownership: Developing knowledge products and collaterals helped CBU set the
guidelines and norms to be open to adapting and owning the process internally. This was an
essential aspect of successfully going through the capacity-building journey. Their
ownership has ensured extensive collaboration and a quality assurance-driven feedback
loop from CGPDTM to CEGIS and CBC. The core belief of the three teams (CBU, CEGIS,
and CBC) and the support from the leadership from IP was to create solutions that would
empower them to get more significant buy-in from the ministry.

As IP moves to its second year of ACBP implementation, the commitment of the CBU and IP
employees has been commendable. Capacity building and competencies have started gaining
stability as the members of the Capacity Building Unit proactively work closely to remove the
bottlenecks that are inevitable for the massive transformation in systems and processes.
Emboldened by a year’s experience, consistent efforts are being taken to address the supply-side
intervention of capacity building through strengthening RGNIIPM, the only institute envisioned to
train delivery on patent and trademark rules. One must acknowledge that the commitment of IP
leadership, Dr. Pandit, and the CBU members set the stage for IP being a frontrunner in
implementing capacity building for the entire IP and enabling a systemic change in the governance
landscape.