IP Offshoring

By some estimates, 60% of all IP work by 2016 will be done in India

The need
There are several significant factors, internal and external that are prompting US law firms to look at outsourcing IP services.

The internal factors within the US:

• The number of patents filed with USPTO will exponentially grow by 50% from the present levels to hit the half-million mark by 2010. More than 60% of these applicants will be foreigners.
• To cope with the above demand, the number of registered US patent attorneys and agents will need to grow by a steep 30%. Since this is unlikely to happen, offshoring some of the backend IP services becomes inevitable.
• While the demand for IP services escalates, IP budgets will increase only modestly. Companies will look to outsource to companies like Azygos to leverage on the cost-arbitrage without jeopardizing quality.

Now for the external factors:

• With its cost arbitrage, robust processes and strong English language roots, Bangalore has been the choice-of-destination for IT services. With the arbitrage ranging up to 1:10, a typical patent filing costs around $6 K in Bangalore v/s $15 K in the US.
• Offshoring backend IP processes will leave US patent attorneys free to concentrate on more business-critical applications
• Offshoring provides the flexibility of right-sizing the team without having to worry about human issues or sunk capital costs.
• The ability of Indian companies to deliver customer-value is now clearly proven. Bangalore is the world’s numero uno for IT offshoring with almost all Fortune-500 companies offshoring their IT services.

The process of IP offshoring
Like in any other cross-border IT outsourcing, IP offshoring follows predictable and transparent processes. While the front-end action takes place in the client’s country, the scene shifts to Bangalore for the iterative back-end processing; eventually, both enmesh to deliver value to the customer.

Patent Application process flow