A licensing desk that matches university patents with Indian manufacturers
TL;DR Patentyard screens patents held by Indian universities and labs, picks the few that someone would actually buy, and finds manufacturers to license them. Universities pay a share of licence income and companies pay a search fee. It could work because campuses now file far more patents than they ever license.
Indian campuses are filing patents like never before. Educational institutions filed 37,681 patent applications in 2024–25, up from 19,155 two years earlier[1], and very few of them ever reach a product.
IIT Delhi's technology-transfer arm lists over 1,300 patents filed and over 185 technology transfers[2], and it is one of the better-run offices. Most colleges have no licensing staff at all, so patents sit unused while renewal fees pile up.
On the other side, small and mid-size manufacturers rarely know what campuses have, and patent text is a pain to read. I found no public figure for licensing income at Indian universities.
The seed wanted to split patents into fractional NFTs so the public could buy shares of their income, and I dropped that. Pooling public money into a managed asset for a share of income meets the conditions of a collective investment scheme under the SEBI Act, which needs registration[3]. Tokens would also attract 30% tax and 1% TDS[4]. Most patents earn nothing anyway, so small buyers would mostly lose.
Patentyard goes after the real problem, which is that nobody is selling these patents. It signs mandates with universities and labs to market their portfolios. Analysts read each patent, drop the weak ones and write a plain one-page brief for the strong ones - what it does, what it replaces and which industries might pay.
The desk then pitches those briefs to manufacturers sector by sector, sets up meetings with the inventors and helps draft a licence or a sponsored-development deal. Companies can also ask the desk to search campus portfolios for a specific problem.
Universities pay mostly on success, through an assumed 15–25% share of licence fees and royalties. Manufacturers pay a search fee, which I'd guess at ₹50,000–2,00,000 per brief. The users on the campus side are technology-transfer cells and inventors. On the company side it's R&D and plant heads who need a fix for a specific problem.
Patent filing by educational institutions nearly doubled between 2022–23 and 2024–25[1], helped along by government awareness drives that reached thousands of campuses[1]. Total applications in India passed 1,10,000 in 2024–25[1], and yet few campuses employ anyone whose job is to sell what they file. That pile of unlicensed patents is only getting bigger.
Nobody publishes a figure for university licensing in India. The firmest data is supply - 37,681 applications from educational institutions in one year[1]. WIPO puts universities at 4% of applications for 2022–2024 and shows a grant delay of 37.8 months in India[5], so many campus patents are still pending when a licensee would want them.
NRDC, under the science ministry, lists technologies for transfer across 11 categories[6]. University cells such as IIT Delhi's FITT license their own portfolios[2]. One UK firm runs a partnering platform with 500+ life-science clients[7]. I found nobody in India running a multi-university desk that sells to manufacturers sector by sector, with briefs written for buyers.
| Difficulty | Moderate (33/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹45–85 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
Building a listing is easy. Closing licences is slow, and it depends on people who can read a patent in the morning and talk to a plant head in the afternoon. Many campus patents are weak, so the screening has to be harsh. Deal cycles can run six to twelve months before any income shows up.
Patentyard needs no licence to market patents, but filing work and public money are off limits without the right people.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI to judge patent validity, scope or freedom to operate. That needs a patent agent or lawyer.
Want to work out the AI layer for Patentyard? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I like this one, though it's a grind. If you have a science background and industry sales experience then it fits, and if you've licensed technology before then even better. If you want quick revenue then this is the wrong idea.
Prove one thing first - that you can close three paid licences from one university's portfolio within a year.
Plan for about ₹45–85 L over 4–6 months, mostly analysts, sector sales and the first university mandates.
Not to market them. You need a registered patent agent for any filing work, and you must never pool public money for patent income without SEBI registration.
Yes, partnering platforms already connect universities and companies abroad. Each country has its own rules on patent agents and on registering licences, so check those first.
The free Patentyard validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the patent and securities-rules checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for universities and manufacturers, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Patentyard or something close to it? The make-or-break work is closing the first few licences before the cash runs out, and that's the kind of thing I help founders with. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.