Innovation needs IP: Why India must build Intellectual Property fluency to power Its growth

An innovation-driven economy is one where individuals and institutions translate research into novel solutions for practical and industrial applications. It hinges on commercialisation for wider dissemination and collaborative technology transfer. India’s ambition to become an innovation‑driven economy is anchored in trading velocity, manufacturing capabilities, and strengthening our digital public infrastructure for the prosperity of all individuals. These foundations matter. But they are not sufficient.

Societies ascend when risk‑taking, experimentation, and learning from failure are normalised, and when inventions are treated as deliberate R&D assets rather than accidental outcomes. They scale when asset creation keeps pace with market entry, and they thrive when markets are used to regenerate future breakthroughs that solve real‑world problems. Intellectual Property (IP), often misunderstood as a legal afterthought, is the catalyst that enables this virtuous cycle.

For IP to function as a compounding engine of innovation, India must treat IP fluency as a national capability, built through systematic and accessible education across multiple academic disciplines – computer science and engineering, business management and the humanities, social sciences and entrepreneurship, law and governance, and design and technology.

Why does India’s progress in this area remain sluggish?

India’s R&D intensity remains structurally low relative to the national aspiration to sustain 7–10% annual growth from a USD 4 trillion base. While India has risen from rank 81 to 38 on the Global Innovation Index over the last ten years, its share of global technology products and services remains modest. The challenge is no longer invention alone, but translation and value capture.

Public investment, including the large commitments in the 2026 Union Budget, does matter. So does private‑sector R&D. Yet India faces a double dilemma: persistently low R&D spending as a share of GDP, and a structurally weak private‑sector contribution. Today, 64% of India’s total R&D expenditure (GERD) is publicly funded. Put differently, for every ₹10 crore spent on R&D, the private sector contributes only ₹3.6 crore. This imbalance is compounded by concentration. Two or three firms account for over 60% of all private R&D spending.

As a result, already constrained public funds are forced to carry both scale and diversity, a burden no state can sustain alone. Public investment by itself cannot deliver technology sovereignty; it must be matched by broad‑based private value creation. That, in turn, requires the creative workforce—artisans, scientists, engineers, lawyers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and investors—to wield intellectual property strategically, not defensively.

This funding imbalance obscures a deeper paradox. India shows extraordinary inventive momentum: highly accessible digital communications infrastructure, manufacturing intensity, world-class software and AI, a robust startup ecosystem, and credible global aspirations. Yet, IP literacy remains uneven, siloed, and often addressed too late in the innovation cycle if at all.

When a country’s inventive energy outpaces its IP capability, value either leaks abroad or remains trapped in domestic markets without global protection. When industrial ecosystems lack visible IP leadership, founders and promoters fall into predictable and costly traps. For deep‑tech startups, early missteps on IP ownership, scope, or standards can threaten long‑term viability. Extensive evidence shows that mature IP strategies improve valuations, reduce downstream legal risk, preserve exit outcomes, and reassure investors that innovation is genuinely defensible.

One illustration of what structured IP capability can unlock comes from Qualcomm’s decades of engagement with the Indian ecosystem—a global leader in wireless technology, energy-efficient computing, and edge AI—and the largest foreign patent applicant in India. Through its Qualcomm Design in India programs, over 150 deep‑tech startups have been incubated, generating more than 750 patents. Over 65% of these patents are embodied in commercially deployed products. Notably, around 5% of all Indian startup patents now emerge from these programs.

The pattern is consistent: IP maturity expands access to funding, accelerates ‘productisation’, and strengthens export competitiveness. The lesson is not about any single firm, but about what becomes possible when IP education is embedded early and systematically.

Institutional improvements reinforce this momentum. Patent grant timelines in India have fallen from six years to roughly one, supported by policy incentives and greater efficiency at the Indian Patent Office. At the same time, US, European, and PCT filings continue to rise. IP‑trained founders negotiate licensing as global equals, help shape standards rather than merely implement them, and move up global value chains. To unlock this at scale, India needs a new systematic approach for IPR capacity building.

How can Indian higher education institutions move from being “IP novices” to “patent pros”?

First, integrate advanced IP modules into mainstream curricula.

Universities must embed specialised IP learning across engineering, law, and management programs, covering IP valuation and management, deep‑tech patenting, and Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). While World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) introductory IP course demonstrates clear demand, India now needs depth. L2ProIndia.com offers a practical scaffold. Developed by Qualcomm with NLU Delhi, BITS Law School (founded and led by one of the co-authors), TurnIP, T‑Hub, and LIQVID, it provides free, modular online training for a broad spectrum of creators.

While the current portfolio of courses covers IP Essentials and foundations of IP Law, the upcoming courses will include training in Executive IP, Entrepreneurship, SEP Essentials, and K‑12 introductory IP modules. These are applied frameworks, and not theoretical lectures. These courses are developed to help inventors navigate issues of ownership, embodiments, claims, licensing, standards, and commercialisation. With over 22,000 learners spanning engineering, business, design, law, and computing, the need is unmistakable. The objective is not to reform academic traditions, but to reimagine applied tertiary education around a simple question: how do we train creators who can systematically build and scale IP portfolios?

Second, mandate IP education across professional schools.

As India moves toward export‑oriented deep‑tech hardware and AI markets, new skills shall determine whether ideas become products or remain prototypes. Deep tech growth cannot rest on legal specialists alone. The goal is to build leadership teams in agile technology-led companies where IP strategy sits at the core, and IP specialists work with the CEO, CTO, CFO, and the Chief Legal Officer.

(a) Engineering programs should integrate technological embodiments, human-centred design, and pathways to technical global standardisation.

(b) Business programs should integrate commercialisation of IP-protected products, patent valuation, intellectual asset management, and global licensing norms.

(c) Design programs should integrate design-around experimentation, coding, command prompt engineering for AI tools, and financial planning.

(d) Entrepreneurship programs should integrate contract management, patent prosecution, analytics, prototyping, and modelling in technology teams.

(e) Law programs, especially those that offer specialisation in technology and IP law, should integrate patent analytics, design thinking, and the art of IP licensing & negotiations.

Third, build dedicated IP curricula for policymakers, patent examiners, and judges.

India’s regulatory and judicial institutions must keep pace with the growing density, complexity, and variety of innovation in the country. A structured curriculum for intensive executive training for patent examiners, policymakers, and members of the judiciary should cover the full lifecycle: R&D → inventions → patents → standards → licensing → local commercialisation → global commercialisation. This is essential to ensure predictable outcomes, reduce ambiguity, accelerate settlements, and create confidence for investors and global partners.

A mindset shift must accompany these reforms. Justice Prathiba Singh of the Delhi High Court recently noted that “technology is the bridge that keeps us connected irrespective of geopolitical boundaries,” cautioning that India must not “ignore India” in matters of IP.

The observation is poignant: Innovation has globalised faster than politics, and IP is India’s passport into international markets, standards bodies, and value chains. If India seeks not merely to participate in technological ecosystems but to shape them, IP education can no longer remain optional.

(Ashish Bharadwaj, ex-Dean, BITS Pilani and Jindal Global University; and Sudeepto Roy, VP, Engineering, Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego. Views expressed are personal.)

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