Bengaluru: Anil Agiwal, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, rose as one of India’s prominent inventors, filing an impressive 2,010 patents in the country. This milestone was highlighted through a GreyB research study, a consultancy known for its expertise in innovation intelligence, which ranked him among the Top 50 Indian inventors driving patent filings in India. Agiwal’s work centres on breakthroughs in cellular communication, notably in 4G, 5G, and 5G Advanced radio access technologies.Agiwal, associated with Samsung Research America, is noted not only for his 2,010 Indian patents but also for holding 471 US patents. His journey began with a campus placement at Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore following his graduation from IIT Kharagpur in 2002. GreyB’s assessment considered patents published between 2016 and 2023 within each inventor’s portfolio.Kapil Bhattad, an IIT Madras graduate who now serves as senior director of engineering at Qualcomm in Bangalore, holds 1,647 patents. He completed a BTech in electrical engineering from IIT Madras in 2002 and went on to receive a PhD from Texas A&M University. Jaidev Rajnikant Shroff, Chairman and Group CEO of UPL, and Vikram Rajnikant Shroff, a director in the company, ranked third and fourth with 1,195 and 998 patents, respectively. Venkateswarlu Jasti, chairman and managing director of Suven Life Sciences, took the fifth ranking with 788 patents.The GreyB listing aims to spotlight the notable achievements of Indian inventors by analysing the Top 50 in the country. Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, a microelectronics industry group, said: “Semiconductor companies honour and reward employees for their patents, recognising this as the lifeblood of innovation. Employee inventors are typically rewarded with a combination of financial incentives and recognition. These may include cash bonuses, plaques, and public acknowledgment, often tied to milestones in the patent process, like application filing or patent issuance. Early in my career at AT&T Bell Labs, my patents helped me advance my career. I put a premium on rewarding my employees for their patents at every stop in my career.”According to Satya Gupta, president of the VLSI Society of India, an increase in the number of patents often leads to a drop in quality. “Out of 1,000 patents filed globally, only 10 may be impactful. This is the story not just with Indian companies but also multinationals. They want to accumulate patents,” he said. Gupta also highlighted that patents are generally registered to company names, not individual employees, due to standard intellectual property clauses in employment agreements that assign ownership of such creations to the employer.GreyB’s findings showed that inventors and researchers working at Qualcomm, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and several Asian firms including Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi, made the largest number of patent submissions in India. This underscores India’s growing importance as a market for global technology firms. In 2025, 3,520 patents were approved from 9,000 applications. Indian inventors received over 1 lakh patents in 2024.IESA president Ashok Chandak noted that both Indian and global technology companies have started viewing intellectual property as a vital strategic resource. They use it to stand apart in the market, accrue economic benefits, create enduring business models, attract investors, raise company evaluations, and strengthen their positions in international negotiations.
