India's Patent Pipeline

India's patent office has a few hundred working examiners handling filings that crossed 100,000 last year. The US has over 8,000 examiners, and China has more than 13,000. New examinations have dropped every year since 2019, even as filings keep climbing. That gap means longer waits, and more time where your application is filed but not yet protected, with room for someone else to move into the same space while you're still in the queue. For anyone building an IP strategy in India, that wait itself deserves a line in the risk register.

IMA India’s Decoding India is a data-led series that explores the metrics shaping India’s economic and business landscape, presented through comparative visuals across Indian states or peer economies. The aim is simple: to make India’s progress easier to understand at a glance and to surface insights that matter for decision-makers.