INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - APRIL 2007
The Month that was ...

IP OFFSHORING TO OPEN NEW OPPORTUNITY IN INDIA

The doors of the world's back office are getting ready to welcome IP service providers now. One of the first off the blocks to join the IP off shoring business is Computer Patent Annuities (CPA), the world's leading IP service provider with 40,000 clients spread over the world and renewal of 1.1 million patents and 46,000 trademarks annually. Soon after it set up its first state-of-the-art IP services delivery centre in India, it is now planning to invest $50 million for expanding its business in India, including legal process outsourcing and developing patent and domain protection softwares.

The IP services market leader had set foot on Indian shores in 2005 when it acquired Intellevate; a company founded by US patent attorneys, SLWK. Intellevate is the market leader in outsourcing and off shoring solutions for IP professionals. IP off shoring includes services like prior art searches, patent illustration services, docketing services and software, Para-legal services and Proof - reading services.

Does India have the skills and the wherewithal to provide all these services? Says Peter Sewell, CPA's global CEO: "We are very happy with what we have experienced in India so far. The quality of work is excellent and it is not cost-effectiveness that has lured us to set up operations in India, though that is also a factor. It is actually the sense of ownership among the staff members here that prompted our move. The third factor was the potential for capacity."

He added that the Indian operations will become the engine room that enables CPA to become the global leader in outsourced legal services. Would the company also look at Indian companies too now that they are getting out of the trappings of linear growth and realizing the importance of creating IP? Not right now but CPA doesn't rule out the possibilities. "We are global companies and most of our clients are MNCs. And today, several Indian companies are turning multinational," says Sewell.

It is not without reason that CPA has made this move this year. According to a Value Notes Off shoring Legal Services report, the Indian legal off-shoring industry will grow ten-fold over the next four years to revenues of $600-million of which the key growth areas will be patent search, filing among other IP-related work. It plans to double its staff strength by end of the year. Says Bhaskar Bagchi, newly appointed country head of CPA: "We would like to deliver high value IP strategies and integrated support services to our global clients."

In a world in which increasing court cases are proving that patent ownership could be a risky proposition because of the ambiguous definitions of patent rights how does CPA look at the work flow. "It will only go up. In the last half-a-decade patent filings have been going up by 20% every year."