New Delhi: India granted as many as 5,299 patents and rejected 1,119 during the April-January period of the current fiscal, Parliament was informed on Friday.
During the period, 35,431 patent application have been filed, Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
In 2013-14, 2012-13 and 2011-12, the country granted 4,225, 4.126 and 4,381 patents, respectively.
"The patents are granted after following the procedures as per the Patents Act 1970...Any Indian company aggrieved by the grant of this patent can also oppose the grant of patent," she said.
Replying to a separate question on American poultry product imports issue, she informed the Lok Sabha that India has filed an appeal before the WTO appellate body on certain rulings of the panel, which the government "considers legally inconsistent with the WTO law".
On January 27, India challenged a WTO panel's ruling that the country's ban on American poultry product imports was inconsistent with global norms.
In its ruling on October 14 last year, the WTO panel had said that India's measures are "arbitrarily and unjustifiably discriminate between members where identical or similar conditions prevail and are applied in a manner, which constitutes a disguised restriction on international trade".
She said that India has a system in place for import of poultry products through sanitary import permits (SIPs).
"SIPs are granted for import of poultry products only after detailed risk analysis from the angle of human and animal safety," she said, adding the imports are allowed from the country which are free from highly pathogenic and low pathogenic avian influenza.
