R&D and patent protection in India

Wiling GmbH, a German SME specialising in the construction of car breaking systems. Its most successful product is based on an invention which was patented with the European Patent Office and in the US in 2015. No patent application was filed in India for this invention. Since then, they entered into a business arrangement with an Indian partner to jointly conduct R&D projects in the field. While any result from this R&D activity was to be the property of Wiling GmBH as per the business arrangement, and formalised in the contract between the two parties, the bulk of the research activity was carried out in India. This was done due to the lower costs of implementing R&D projects in India; nevertheless at that point there was no specific plan to commercialise their products in India.