What this means for your analysis
What's Coming
We are adding patent data from India to LexisNexis® PatentSight+™. The release is planned for the 9th November. India is the world’s sixth largest patent jurisdiction, and this release adds around 1.8 million bibliographic documents (applications, granted patents and designs), covering approximately 1.395 million families with at least one Indian member.
This release covers bibliographic data, including IPC classifications and available legal events. Claims, descriptions, images, OCR and machine translations will not be included; full text, where available, comes via existing LexisNexis sources.
What this means for your analysis
- Broader coverage. Indian-only inventions will appear alongside the rest of the PatentSight+ with Protégé dataset.
- More complete families. Existing families will gain any Indian members they have. Because Market Coverage draws on family membership, it and the indicators that depend on it will reflect the fuller picture. Technology Relevance (TR) will also shift slightly, including for patents with no Indian members, because TR is a relative benchmark against all other patents. The change is small, usually less than the movement seen in a typical weekly update, though in rare cases it may be larger.
- Consistent portfolio analysis. Competitor and geographic portfolio views will be more accurate where India is part of the picture.
- Annuity fees. Annuity fee calculations will also use Indian patent office rates. The Indian data includes fee payment information and dates.
Coverage and Limitations
Legal status
India will be treated as an untrusted authority in PatentSight+, because the legal event data we receive is not sufficient to establish a reliable status on its own. Available Indian legal events will be mapped to PatentSight+ legal-status logic and visible at document level. Where possible, legal events will be given a WIPO ST.27 code. if you wish to view them, you will need to select the in force / pending / inactive button at the top right of the family in the Results Sheet to open the legal status viewer.
Fields not available for Indian patents
Some fields will not provided for Indian patents:
- Citations: We do not receive citation data for Indian patents, so their backward citations will not be available. Where another patent cites an Indian patent (for example, a US patent), that citation is captured through our usual data route.
- CPC: India does not use CPC. A family may still carry CPC codes if it includes a member from an office that does.
- F-Terms: India does not assign F-Terms. A family may carry them if it includes a Japanese member.
Family identifiers
Where a family has a DOCDB/EPO simple family ID (sfam_ID), we will use it. Where it does not, LexisNexis will assign an ID in its own format (an integer, for example 121418383). This keeps the data consistent with earlier PatentSight+ data and with other systems that use the DOCDB/EPO ID.
FAQs
Do I need to do anything?
No activation is required to access the added India coverage. You can continue using your existing PatentSight+ search and portfolio workflows.
How do I explore the Indian data in Protégé?
Through your existing Protégé workflows. You can ask questions about Indian portfolios, competitors, technology areas and filing trends in plain language, compare competitors using the expanded data, and look at Indian publications and how they sit within global patent families.
Is this the same data as in PatentSight+?
Yes. Protégé uses the same underlying PatentSight+ data, so the same coverage and analytical limitations apply. This includes bibliographic data only (no claims, descriptions, images, OCR or machine translations), and no native backward citation data, CPC classifications or F-Terms for Indian patents.
When will Indian data be available in Protégé?
At the same time as PatentSight+. India coverage is scheduled to be added on 9 November 2026. After that, new Indian records arrive through a weekly feed and are expected to be available in the second calendar week after collection, so they do not appear immediately.
Why might Protégé results leave out patents that are still active in India?
An inactive family does not necessarily mean that every Indian member has expired, meaning that searches restricted to active families may therefore exclude patents that are still active in India. Legal status is less visible in Protégé than in PatentSight+, so it is worth keeping in mind when you ask for active families only.
For general information on how family legal status is determined, see Legal Status.
Will answers I have seen before change?
They may. As Indian data is loaded, results can change, including for families without Indian members, because indicators such as Technology Relevance are measured against the whole patent population. Differences may reflect the expanded data as well as changes in patent activity. If an answer looks inconsistent with the records or your search criteria, contact your CSM or Support.
Note: PatentSight+ and Protégé use the same underlying data, so everything in this article also applies to answers in Protégé. For a summary of what this means when using Protégé, see India patent data to be added to LexisNexis Protégé™ in PatentSight.