New York: Several Indian units of various American technology companies have filed more than 1,000 patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark office, a media report said today (Dec 16, 2003).

Thousands of Indian engineers designing next generation applications are churning out "significant amounts" of intellectual property for companies like Cisco Systems, General Electric, Intel, International Business Machines (IBM), Motorola and Texas instruments.

Some applications, with patents already granted, date to the early 1990s, but most have been filed in the last two years and still await decision by the patent examiners, 'The New York Times' newspaper said.

In a Bangalore plant for Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, Ajith Prasad and 20 other engineers are designing and developing chips that they hope will power new types of high-speed broadband wireless technology within the radius of a home or an office in the next few years.

"This is technology of the future. Even the standards are still being written." Prasad's team, the 'The New York Times' said, has filed six of the 60 US patent applications from Intel's India unit in the last 22 months.

For American technology companies, under pressure to generate quick breakthroughs and develop products while curbing costs, the 'The New York Times' said, India's big draw is its low-cost, deep pool of well-educated technical talent.

The Indian research centres of Cisco and Motorola, for example, are now those companies' largest outside the US.

PTI