Legal research and patent search are the latest in a string of outsourcing items increasingly sent to India.

Some high-end outsourcing work in the intellectual property law demands prior patent search, drafting and preparation of specifications and claims in patent applications.

This is where TMPsearchers.com, which has been offering free patent search, free trademark search and free legal research services in India for more than a year, comes into the picture.

The firm will start offering patent search outsourcing services at a low cost from April 15, 2005.

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Janaki Natarajan, President, TMPsearchers.com, says that the move was based on the request of several clients who want to outsource prior patent search services.

TMPsearchers.com employs attorneys and patent searchers who are trained by western attorneys and are fluent in multiple databases like Westlaw, Lexis, STN, Delphion, etc.

These databases are available online for searching anywhere in the world and the only requirement is high-speed Internet connectivity which is now easily available in India.

Natarajan also said that TMPsearchers.com is looking for potential strategic partners who can either market their services or outsource work directly both for prior patent search and prior trademark search in several countries whose trademark database is available online.

By leveraging the relatively lower cost of living in India, TMPsearchers actually ensures that their consultants have a higher or equal standard of living as their foreign counterparts while at the same time, charging their clients a relatively lower fee.

In these highly specialised fields, talent pool is low but the demand is very high and naturally compensation packages are high and therefore many corporates are not able to employ a large team of professionals on this important task. Even within India, many pharmaceutical companies have only one person to look after their patent portfolio.

In addition to offering patent search outsourcing services TMPsearchers also arranges fixed cost patent filing services in India if so needed by their clients. But this is done only on specific request of a client.

A number of companies -- from Korea to India to the western coast of the United States -- have utilised the free patent services of TMPsearchers and demand for these services is considerable.

This, say analysts, is likely to see the emergence of India as a research hub of prior patent search, patent invalidity searches and patent watch services in the near future.

Taking this aspect in to account, several Indian institutions have started offering specialised courses and the central government is also increasing funding to raise world-class universities in India.

Natarajan said that this trend is likely to increase and will result in the creation of several high end jobs in India while it will not diminish the jobs in western countries as talent pool available is very low all over the world. It is a win-win situation for all for at least the next five to ten years.