Indian Patent Portfolio of German Car Manufacturers

This post was first published on 16th April, 2012.
 
Germany is considered to be the birthplace of the automobile since late 1870’s when Karl Benz and Nikolaus Otto independently developed four-stroke internal combustion engines. Germany has the largest share of passenger car production in Europe with over 29% market share, followed by France (18%), Spain (13%) and the United Kingdom (9%). Nearly six million vehicles are produced in Germany each year, and approximately 5.5 million are produced overseas by German brands. Germany is placed 4th among automobile manufacturers in the world after US, China and Japan.
Some of the leading car manufactures in Germany are Daimler, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and BMW. Company Profile: Daimler AG (formerly DaimlerChrysler) is a German multinational automotive corporation. In addition to automobiles, Daimler manufactures buses and provides financial services through its Daimler Financial Services arm. Daimler produces cars and trucks under the brands of Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, Smart, Freightliner and many others.
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer which now owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, 49.9% of Porsche, Giugiaro, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania. Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand, positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group.
Porsche Automobile Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche, is a German holding company with investments in the automotive industry. It owns 50.7% of Volkswagen AG and 50.1% of Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH, which owns 100% of Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche AG, the manufacturer of a range of sports cars and SUVs. Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1917. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
Patent Scenario
We performed a search in Indian patent database to reveal the number of patents and published applications that belong to above mentioned German car manufactures.
From the graph above, it is evident that Daimler AG leads the patent battle which is followed by Volkswagen. Porsche and BMW hold same patent count. However, Audi does not hold any patent in India yet. In the published application, Porsche leads the battle, followed by Volkswagen. Daimler and BMW have the same number of published applications.
From the graph it is pretty clear that overseas companies are trying to make their mark in India by filing for patents. Hence, there is always room for competition in India, whatsoever the sector may be.
Disclaimer
The data provided is based on the search performed on Indian patent office’s database using specific search queries and may not be complete due to limitations in extent of data or search query.

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