International trade in services is expanding exponentially in the WTO era as enabled by e-commerce under mode one of cross border supply of services as provided in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Outsourcing of services under the various categories of BPO and KPO segments have encompassed and integrated all economic activities at competitive cost and has helped optimum allocation of economic resources.

Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have enabled uniformity and harmony in domestic IPR regulations of member countries and global filing of patent and trade mark applications have been increasing for the past few years. However, even today the awareness of patent protection in India and other developing countries is very low and as a result out of approximately 5.6 million patents in force in 2005, 49% were owned by applicants from Japan and the United States of America alone. A large
number of applications filed in developing countries including India are filed by non-residents and the worldwide average is 38% by non-resident applicants. This situation has enabled Indian IPR consultants to file patent applications for non-residents through outsourcing vendors not only in India but at global level.

The patent offices of Japan and the United States of America are the largest recipients of patent filing followed by China, the Republic of Korea and the European Patent Office accounting for 77% of all patents filed in 2005. In India there is a need to increase the number of patent filings by bridging the gaps between the inventors and the investors by proper coordination between the universities, research institutions and industries.

ITAG - A GATEWAY TO GLOBAL IPR SOLUTION
ITAG has entered into the field of intellectual property asset management with the object of reaching out to all major cities in the country and developing a network by involving chartered accountants, lawyers, company secretaries and various professional bodies to cater to the growing needs of IP asset management and inter-linking the services at global level through its overseas operations. ITAG has the team of expert engineers and IP Lawyers with experience in international IPR and trade laws. We believe that IP outsourcing services will become one of the major areas of export of services from India to the global market and will compete with IT outsourcing services in foreign exchange earnings in very near future.

--Dr. D. R. Agarwal