Ten-year-old Shoolini University has added another feather to its cap with having ranked third in the country, and first in Himachal Pradesh, in filing patents by academic institutes and universities across India.
As per the annual report recently released by the Office of Intellectual Rights, India, the first in the list of patent filers are the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). However, the patents filed by all the 23 IITs in the country have been merged to declare the group of institutions as the top patent filer.
The rankings were declared on Thursday by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trade Marks and Geographical Indicators under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
While the report did not disclose the exact number of patents filed by different institutions, it mentioned the number of patents filed from each state. According to it, a total of 193 patents were filed from Himachal Pradesh during April 2018 and March 2019 while Shoolini University alone has the record of filing 185 of these patents during the period. Despite a number of institutions, including centrally funded institutions, in Himachal Pradesh, almost all patents have been filed by Shoolini University researchers who have taken the state to be among the top patent filing states of the country.
The University has so far filed 425 patents since its inception.
Congratulating the faculty and students for the prestigious rankings, Vice-Chancellor Prof PK Khosla said the rankings reflect the emphasis laid on research in the University. He said the University was already rubbing shoulders with the world’s top universities in various parameters of research and innovation.
He said the university started paying focus on research in late 2014 and its researchers could file only 33 patents for the first year. It picked up the pace and has filed a total of 425 patents till date. The next step after the formal filing of patents is the publication of the patent and so far 211 of these patents have been published.
Prof Khosla said that 30 of its design patents have been granted besides a trademark. He also informed that six copyrights have been granted to the University.
The Vice-Chancellor said that the COVID pandemic has slowed down the research work but stressed that efforts are being made to expedite pending projects.
The University has filed the maximum number of patents in Biotechnology followed by those in engineering, basic sciences, and pharmaceuticals.
