November brought good news for the Indian IP community: the country has recorded the world’s fastest growth in patent applications – an impressive 15.7 percent in 2023 over 2022’s rates – and has secured sixth position in the global Top 10 for patents, trademarks and industrial designs in the World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) 2024, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization.  

“Patent applications [globally] recorded a fourth consecutive year of growth, reaching a record high of 3.55 million, with the residents of China, the Republic of Korea, the United States of America, Japan and India being the main drivers of growth,” said Daren Tang, WIPO’s director general. He noted that design filings also rebounded, rising by 2.8 percent to reach 1.5 million. 

“On the other hand, trademark filings dropped to 11.6 million applications covering 15.2 million classes,” he said. “Perhaps the decline in trademark filings is levelling off, although it is too early to tell.” 

In his foreword to the report, Tang called out India’s patent filing success: “A key observation is the increasingly global nature of innovation. If we look at last year’s patent filings, we see India recorded a remarkable growth rate of 15.7 percent, its fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth. Exceptional rises were also recorded by residents of Algeria, Finland, Indonesia, Poland 

and Saudi Arabia.” 

At the same time, in April 2024, the U.S. Trade Representative has called India among the most challenging major economies on IP enforcement and protection, along with China, Indonesia, Russia, Chile and Venezuela. “These countries will the subject of a particularly intense bilateral engagement during the coming year,” the USTR said in a report, while listing several of its concerns about Indian IP enforcement, including being among the top sources of counterfeit medicine and auto parts.” 

The report said that India, along with Singapore and China, were among the top countries of origin for counterfeit pharmaceuticals seized at the U.S. border in fiscal year 2023. 

It also cited trademark violations: “The problem of trademark counterfeiting continues on a global scale and involves the production, transhipment and sale of a vast array of fake goods. Counterfeit goods make their way from China and other source countries, such as India and Turkey, directly to purchasers around the world,” the report said. 

As India’s participation in international patent, trademark and, indeed, other forms of intellectual property, increases at a strong rate, it is no surprise that we have seen a commensurate increase in top-flight IP work being done there. Asia IP asked a large number of professionals – mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers – what they were looking for from their legal service providers. From their answers, we have compiled our list of India’s 100 IP Experts, those lawyers who understand just what their clients need and are able to provide them with the best practical advice.  

Top-notch individuals have long been easy to come by in Delhi and the National Capital Region as well as in Mumbai and nearby Pune, but are increasingly easy to find in other regions of the country, as well. While a few large, traditional firms continue to place multiple lawyers on our list, they are increasingly challenged by smaller upstarts, which are often formed by alumni of the older firms, blending the traditions of those firms with a fresher outlook and a, perhaps, more innovative, nimble approach. 

It comes as no surprise that NCR-based firms Anand and Anand and Remfry & Sagar collectively accounted for more than 10 percent of the list. Top-ranked IP lawyers Pravin Anand, Safir Anand, Dhruv Anand, Vaishali Mittal, Uditha Patro, Archana Shankar and Neeti Wilson at Anand and Anand and Ashwin Julka, C.A. Brijesh, Devika Mehra, Samta Mehra, Ranjna Mehta-Dutt, Surendra Sharma and Pankaj Soni at Remfry & Sagar all made the list. 

Saikrishna & Associates had five lawyers named to the list: Sidharth Chopra, Ameet Datta, Monica Datta, Saikrishna Rajagopal and Garima Sahney; as did Lall & Sethi (Jyotideep Kaur, Anju Khanna, Raghav Malik, Tia Malik and Nancy Roy). 

Six firms placed three lawyers on the list: Chadha & Chadha (Chetan Chadha, Gopal Trivedi and Tarun Gandhi); K&S Partners (Deepa Kachroo Tiku, Latha Nair and Amrish Tiwari); LexOrbis (Manisha Singh, Abhai Pandey and Rajeev Kumar); R.K. Dewan & Co. (Mohan Dewan, Nishi Dewan and Disha Dewan); RNA, Technology and IP Attorneys (Ranjan Narula, Shabnam Khan and Rachna Bakhru); and Singh & Singh (Saya Choudhary, Sudeep Chatterjee and Bitika Sharma).  

No other firm placed more than two lawyers on the list, tallying up an impressive total of 58 different law firms represented on our list, demonstrating clearly that while the largest firms might still remain in the lead, that lead may not be as large as they think it is. The upstarts are hot on their heels. 

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s India’s IP Experts.

– GREGORY GLASS 

India’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to in-house counsel in India, Asia and elsewhere around the world, as well as India-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.  

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding India’s legal market. 

All private-practice intellectual property lawyers in India were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion in the process. 

The names of our 100 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.