INDIA HO! While people decry the outsourcing of legal work, India seems ripe for the "patent-pickings" so to speak. However, this recent article, which calls for greater recruiting of patent attorneys, seems to indicate that India is experiencing a gross understaffing of registered patent attorneys within India itself.

In a country of more than one billion, the number of actual patent attorney practitioners does not even cross the 100-mark.

Says Ramesh B Vishwanath, advocate and registered patent and trademarks attorney from Hyderabad, "There may be several registered patent attorneys in the country today but the number of actual patent attorney practitioners is just around 50."

According to the official website on patents, the number of registered patent agents (attorneys) as on May 31, 2004, was 607.

"Till now there were only about 2,000 patents filed by Indian companies and 25,000 by foreign companies in India, on a yearly basis. Within a couple of years, we expect these numbers to grow to 10,000 from India and 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) from abroad," he adds.