The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology has said, there has been a drop by more than 50 per cent in the number of patents filed by the Department of Biotechnology in the last three years. In a report tabled in Rajya Sabha it said, the performance of the department has gone down considerably in the last three years both in terms of patents filed and granted.<br/><br/>The number of patents filed in national category dropped to 33 in last year from 70 in 2013-14. Similarly, the number of patents filed as foreign dipped from 18 to 10 last year. It said that patent filing is one of the major indicators of the scientific achievements of the department. The panel recommended that the department should devise a mechanism to keep a record of the patents filed, both in India and abroad, by the institutions supported by the department.