ISLAMABAD - The number of patents granted to Pakistani researchers/companies by the Pakistan Patent Office shows a very poor state of applied research in Pakistan as over 90 per cent of the patents registered are of foreign companies. Its important to be mentioned that a patent for an invention is grant of exclusive rights to make, use and sell the invention for a limited period of 20 years. The patent grant excludes others from making, using, or selling the invention. And the patents office currently is a part of Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO) Pakistan under Cabinet Division. The indicator highlights dismal state of affairs of applied research in industrial and technical field that is far below as compared to neighbouring countries as well. According to officials documents available with TheNation the total number of patents granted by the Pakistan Patent Office is also far less than that of other countries. Total number of patents granted by the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, India, during the year 2008-2009 was 16061 out of which 2541 were granted to Indians. The Intellectual Property Office of the Peoples Republic China granted 128489 patents in the year 2009, out of which 65391 were domestic. Under a programme the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had started to pay the cost of patenting for the young scientists but no other institution bears the cost of patenting, and HEC funds has also now severely curtailed. The number of international patents had started going up sharply after the introduction of a mechanism in HEC to fund the cost of international patenting (US $ 5,000 to US $ 20,000). It is now universally recognised that the development of a country is strongly dependent on its science and technology capacity despite that the expenditure on science and technology remains low in Pakistan. Research and development expenditure as a percentage of GDP, which is currently 0.59 per cent, is far less than the UNESCOs recommended limit, which is at least 2 per cent of the GDP for countries like Pakistan. At present 105 organisations and institutions are engaged at some level of research and development activities. And the number of fulltime scientists and engineers in Pakistan is only 162 per million inhabitants. Currently there are 53621 research and development personnel in the country out of which 26129 are full time researchers. The management of the whole system is not conducted as a unified network, rather different authorities exercise control of different segments according to the nature of mandate assigned to various establishments.