India’s Stillborn Innovations

 

The roots of a patenting malaise run deeper than vanity filings

By Nagesh Bhushan Chuppala

In recent weeks, a sharp critique in the media has spotlighted a growing malaise in India’s startup ecosystem: patents filed not for protection or commercial value, but for PR. Founders slap “patent pending” or “IP-backed” on pitch decks, only to abandon applications soon after raising funds. Full credit to those calling it out—this vanity filing is real and corrosive. But the uncomfortable truth is that the problem begins far earlier than the provisional patent stage. Indian patents aren’t dying because founders suddenly turn cynical at Series A. Most are stillborn because the ecosystem that produces original, groundbreaking thought is anaemic. We’re trying to harvest fruit without ever planting the trees.

Innovation Isn’t a Switch You Flip at Series A

True innovation—especially the deep-tech, category-creating kind—isn’t a late-stage corporate behaviour. It’s a muscle built painfully early: on school benches, in undergraduate labs, and along PhD corridors. India, however, has long optimised for rankers, not tinkerers; for exams, not experiments; for services, not systems. When curiosity is punished on marksheets and failure is treated as a moral failing, you don’t magically produce first-principles thinkers by age 28.Startups filing patents as window dressing is merely a symptom. The disease runs deeper.

The Structural Cracks

1. Education trains for replication, not exploration
   We reward correctness over questioning. A culture that fears being wrong will never produce inventors comfortable reasoning from first principles.
2. R&D is institutionally orphaned
   Universities rarely incentivise commercially relevant research. Industry largely distrusts academia. The vital bridge between the two is missing, forcing everyone to build in isolated sandpits.
3. Risk is socialised as failure
   In most Indian households, “try and fail” remains a luxury narrative reserved for motivational posters, not a lived reality. Safe, predictable careers crowd out bold ideas long before anyone considers founding a startup.
4. Manufacturing and lab infrastructure lag ambition
   You cannot patent what you cannot prototype. Without accessible fabrication facilities, testing infrastructure, and scalable manufacturing, most ideas remain PowerPoint-deep.
5. Capital prefers speed over depth
   Investors chasing quick revenue naturally favour lightweight business models over slow, capital-intensive science. This bias shapes founder incentives long before the patent office enters the picture.

How India Compares to China and Israel: Lessons from Innovation Powerhouses

To understand India's challenges, it's instructive to compare with peers like China and Israel, both of which punch above their weight in global innovation despite differing scales and contexts. While India ranks 38th on the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025, China holds the 10th spot, and Israel ranks 14th.

wipo.int

These rankings reflect deeper ecosystem differences that amplify or mitigate the structural cracks outlined above.

• Education and Talent Pipeline: China's education system has shifted toward STEM emphasis and practical innovation, producing a massive pool of engineers and researchers. Israel fosters a "tinkering" culture from early schooling, with programs encouraging problem-solving and entrepreneurship—contrasting India's rote-learning focus that stifles curiosity.
• R&D Investment and Bridges: Israel leads globally in R&D expenditure at 6.02% of GDP (2022), far outpacing China's 2.56% and India's 0.65% (2020).  data.worldbank.org

Strong academia-industry ties in Israel, often via military tech transfers, create seamless bridges. China invests heavily in state-backed R&D hubs, integrating universities with industry giants like Huawei. India's orphaned R&D suffers from underfunding and distrust, limiting commercial translation.

• Risk Culture: Israel's "Startup Nation" ethos normalizes failure, bolstered by compulsory military service that builds resilience and tech skills. China's government subsidies and national priorities reduce individual risk for innovators. In India, societal pressure toward stability often kills bold ideas in infancy.
• Infrastructure and Prototyping: China's world-class manufacturing ecosystem enables rapid prototyping and scaling, turning ideas into patents. Israel's tech parks and fab labs provide accessible tools for deep-tech experimentation. India's gaps in fabrication and testing keep innovations theoretical.
• Capital and Incentives: Both China and Israel attract patient capital for deep tech—Israel boasts high VC per capita, while China's state funds fuel long-term R&D. India's VCs lean toward quick-flip models, reinforcing superficial IP.

In deep-tech startups, India ranks sixth globally, behind China (second) and Israel (fourth), highlighting potential but also execution hurdles. femaleswitch.com

The Data Tells the Same Story

India’s patent filings have surged—over 90,000 in FY24, with grants hitting a record ~103,000 and a 16.5% growth in applications in 2024. wipo.int

Yet, by volume, it pales against China's 1.8 million applications in 2024, which account for nearly half the global total. wipo.int

Israel, with a population fraction of India's, focuses on high-quality filings, often in AI and biotech, contributing to its outsized impact. India's GII ranking has improved from 81st in 2015 to 38th in 2025, and it boasts around 4,000 deep-tech startups (sixth globally). femaleswitch.com

But knowledge creation and commercial translation still lag peers like China, where resident filings dominate and grants surged in 2024.Policies such as the National Deep Tech Startup Policy, tinkering labs under NEP 2020, and increased funding through ANRF are welcome steps. But they treat symptoms while the root cause—a broken early-stage pipeline—remains largely untouched, especially when benchmarked against China's scale and Israel's intensity.

Building Inventors Starts at Age 12

Innovation is a long game of habit formation. You don’t create inventors on demo day; you create them:

• At age 12, when asking “why?” is celebrated, not frowned upon.
• At age 19, when labs and hands-on experimentation matter more than lectures.
• At age 25, when pursuing research doesn’t feel like professional exile.

Until we fix the pipeline that shapes minds from school onward—rewarding curiosity, normalising failure, bridging academia and industry, and building real prototyping infrastructure—patents will continue arriving dressed for a party that never truly begins. Learning from China’s investment scale and Israel’s cultural agility could accelerate this transformation. India has the talent. What it needs is the soil, sunlight, and patience to grow ideas that endure. Only then will our patents stop being stillborn and start changing the world.

Sowing for Tomorrow

Policies like the National Deep Tech Startup Policy and NEP’s tinkering labs are seeds of change. Yet without uprooting rote culture, bridging silos and embracing failure, they risk withering. Emulate China’s scale and Israel’s agility: invest boldly in education, normalise risk and build fabs. India has the talent—a diaspora powering Silicon Valley attests. Provide the soil, and patents might finally thrive, not just dress for the party.