India received 110,375 patent applications in 2024/25. Ten years earlier the figure was 46,904. Over the same period the people filing them changed almost completely.
We built this report because clients keep asking us the same questions. How busy is the Indian Patent Office? Who is filing? How does India compare with China, Europe and the US? The answers below come straight from the official numbers. Where a figure looked odd to us, we say so.
A note on dates. IP India reports by financial year, April to March, so "2024/25" means April 2024 to March 2025. WIPO and the EPO report by calendar year.
Filings have more than doubled
For the first five years growth was slow, around 5% a year. Then it picked up. Filings went from 66,440 in 2021/22 to 82,811 the next year, and have kept rising since. Last year alone added almost 20%.
Grants are harder to read. They rose steadily to 34,134 in 2022/23, then jumped to 103,057 in 2023/24, a year in which the office granted more patents than it received applications. In 2024/25 they dropped back to 33,504. The same report records only 15,726 applications examined that year, compared with 49,961 two years earlier. We would treat that figure with some care until IP India publishes more detail. Either way, anyone filing now should plan for a longer wait before a first examination report.
Indian applicants now file most applications
In 2015/16 foreign companies filed almost three of every four Indian applications. Today the position is reversed. Indian applicants filed 68,201 of the 110,375 applications in 2024/25, or 61.8%.
Grants have not kept pace. Indian patentees received 10,682 of the 33,504 patents granted in 2024/25, under a third. The official data does not explain the gap. Part of it is simply timing, since so many Indian filings are recent and still waiting for examination.
Universities are now a third of the total
This was the number that surprised us most. Educational institutions filed 7,501 applications in 2021/22. In 2024/25 they filed 37,894, about one application in three.
Lovely Professional University led with 2,241 applications, ahead of Saveetha (SIMATS) with 2,038. All the IITs together filed 1,740. Startups, by comparison, filed 2,704 applications in the year, up from 1,611 in 2020/21.
The largest foreign filers
Among foreign applicants, Qualcomm filed 2,949 applications in India in 2024/25. Nokia and Samsung each filed just over 1,500. Most of the list is telecoms and consumer electronics, with LG Energy Solution and Mercedes the exceptions.
Which technologies
Computer science and electronics made up 27% of filings, with 29,494 applications. Mechanical engineering was next at 18,874. IP India now counts pharmaceuticals within chemical, which together came to 14,957.
India against the rest of the world
The world's patent offices received about 3.7 million applications in 2024, according to WIPO. China's office took almost half of them. India's office was sixth with 105,157 and grew faster than any other office in the top ten, at 16.5%.
International filings tell a less happy story for India. Under the PCT, Indian applicants filed 3,070 applications in 2025, down from 4,543 the year before, and India slipped from ninth to twelfth. China filed 73,718. More Indian inventions are being protected at home, but fewer are being taken abroad.
Huawei was again the largest single PCT applicant, with 7,523 published applications. Battery maker CATL appears in fifth place, a sign of where investment is going.
In Europe, the EPO passed 200,000 applications for the first time in 2025, with 201,974. US applicants filed 47,008. China moved into third place with 22,031. Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's office received 358,313 applications in 2025 on preliminary figures, and China granted 972,000 invention patents.
What we take from this
For applicants in India, the practical point is time. With filings rising and examinations falling, it makes sense to request examination early and to check whether expedited examination is available, for example as a startup or a small entity.
For Indian companies and universities, the PCT figures are worth a second look. If an invention has a market abroad, the decision on foreign filing has to be made within twelve months of the first Indian filing. The falling PCT numbers suggest many are not taking that step.
For universities in particular, the volume is now large enough that quality will matter. An application that cannot show an inventive step costs money and rarely becomes a patent.
For foreign applicants, India is no longer a market where most of the prior art is foreign. Searches need to cover Indian filings, especially in computing and electronics.
We help with each of these through our patent services and international filing support.
Frequently asked questions
How many patent applications were filed in India in 2024/25?
110,375, according to the IP India Annual Report 2024/25. That is 19.8% more than the 92,168 filed in 2023/24.
How many patents did India grant in 2024/25?
33,504, down from a record 103,057 in 2023/24. Indian patentees received 10,682 of them.
Which foreign company files the most patents in India?
Qualcomm, with 2,949 applications in 2024/25. Among Indian academic institutions, Lovely Professional University led with 2,241.
Can we use these charts?
Yes, with credit to PRASA IP and a link to this page. The underlying figures come from the official sources listed below.
Official sources
- IP India Annual Report 2024/25, with earlier annual reports back to 2015/16
- WIPO World Intellectual Property Indicators 2025
- WIPO, international patent applications in 2025 (March 2026) and annexes
- EPO, demand for European patents in 2025 (March 2026)
- JPO preliminary statistics, December 2025
- CNIPA, 30 January 2026