Intellectual property regime and india as a knowledge economy

It is often said that India is moving towards knowledge economy. There are various definitions of knowledge economy but one thing is sure that the next era will continue to be a knowledge era and the economic prosperity of a country or a firm will be closely linked with its knowledge capital stock. There are various ways of describing a knowledge economy like number of knowledge workers, knowledge sectors, knowledge industries and so on. But one thing is sure that the stock of knowledge cannot be definitely measured and yet it’s widely accepted measurement yardstick is Intellectual property and patents filed by a country or a firm.
As noted by WalterW. Powell and Kaisa Snellman, “We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technical and scientific advance, as well as rapid obsolescence. The key component of a knowledge economy is a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources.”
This paper examines the Indian capabilities and efforts towards creating the knowledge capital through filing and getting patents, trademarks, or intellectual property rights, industrial designs etc. If India is moving towards the knowledge economy then its place as compared to that of other countries in the world also matters. Not only the advanced and developed economies but also the emerging economies with similar GDP and growth rates are moving towards knowledge economy, then we have to examine the relative speed and position of India in this regard.