Sample this - the Intel team in Bangalore is developing microprocessor chips for high-speed broadband wireless technology, to be launched in 2006; at GE's John F Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, engineers are developing new ideas for aircraft engines, transport system and plastics.

Be it Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, a 'weighty' amount of intellectual property is being created for US companies here.

Indian units of Cisco Systems, Intel, IBM , Texas Instruments, GE have filed 1,000 patent applications with the US Patent Office. Texas Instruments has 225 US patents awarded to its Indian operation.

It's the Year of the Idea, and the newest and busiest hub for innovations and intellectual property is India. Indians are parenting patents like never before in 200 R&D labs.

"India is the new hub for patents, and soon, the world will be outsourcing R&D from India," says P Gopalakrishnan, director, IBM India Research Lab, IIT.

Here's a list of patents passed in India: a moulded toothbrush with flexible bristles; a process for preparing a cell culture composition; a safety device for motorised two-wheelers with shock absorption; a process for isolation and purification of protein P17 for HIV.

Intel, Bangalore has photographs of company engineers who have applied for patents hanging on the wall of fame. "We're making innovations in Bangalore, like we would in the Silicon Valley," says Siddhartha Das, Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd.

"Our 1,400 engineers are constantly innovating chip hardware design, communication technologies. Now, we even have a well-developed Intellectual Property strategic program. In 2003, we made 125 invention disclosures and several patent filings from India," he says.

There's even a BPO for patents - Evaluserve in Gurgaon.

"We file patents for Fortune 500 companies across the world. But even Indian companies are waking up to the Big Idea. More and more companies are inviting us to evaluate innovations and file patents," says Ashish Gupta, COO, Evaluserve. "Indians want to be creators of intellectual property and not just own it."