Mumbai: The electrical engineering department of IIT-Bombay has made the maximum contribution to the increasing number of patent claims that the institute has filed over the past decade. Almost a third of the 523 patent claims, at 164, between 2005 and 2015 were filed by the department, followed by mechanical engineering (75) and biology (53) departments. In fact, three departments with chemistry (48) together contribute approximately 65% of the claims filed. On the other hand, a department such as computer science, the most sought-after at the institute, has approximately 15 patents to its credit. The data was compiled by students from the institute for Insight, their campus magazine.“Certain departments tend to focus on product-centric research output while others have more theoretical research to their credit. Some of the departments such as computer science, too, are actively involved in research work, but their work is published in journals and not patented,” said Eeshan Malhotra, a final-year student from the computer science department, one of the students to have compiled the data using inputs from the institute. Malhotra added there are a lot of pre-conceived notions on the basis of research done by each department. “Before we started compiling the data, we believed core engineering departments would have more numbers to their credit. But we also have a department such as biology, which has contributed the third-highest number of patents,” he added.P V Balaji, dean (research and development), said a lot of other aspects have to be factored. “The number of faculty members in the departments should also be considered to normalize the data. Electrical engineering has around 60 professors. A computer science department student or faculty can come up with a fantastic algorithm, but laws of the country do not allow it to be patented. The kind of research work done by some of the departments cannot be patented,” said the professor. He added that even collaborative research with different departments had to be considered for data compilation. The number of patents filed by the institute has increased from 72 in the previous year to 128 in 2015-16.Students also found out that maximum patents are filed in June. A professor said most find time to complete their research work during summer vacation.