UK says no to Microsoft Activision deal; Nasscom highlights India’s dismal show in patent filings

India accounts for an insignificant share of patents worldwide, an analysis by Nasscom, the country’s top tech lobby, shows. In a report titled Unpacking Indians IP landscape, Nasscom yesterday pointed out that China accounted for 46.6 percent of all patents filed in 2021, as applications returned to pre-Covid levels. The US, Japan and South Korea are other major patent filers. India had a dismal 1.8 percent. Also in this brief, UK’s competition authorities have blocked Microsoft’s $68.9 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard; and Infosys and Walmart team up on a software solution for retailers. Notes: Britain’s top competition regulator on Wednesday moved to block Microsoft’s acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, in a big blow to the US tech giant, CNBC reports. Microsoft said it plans to appeal the decision. The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it opposed the deal as it raises competition concerns in the nascent cloud gaming market. The CMA previously held concerns about competition in games consoles being undermined but ruled out this concern in a preliminary decision in March, according to CNBC. Microsoft could make Activision’s games exclusive to its cloud gaming platform, Xbox Game Pass, cutting off distribution to other key industry players, the CMA said in a press release yesterday. Infosys, yesterday, said it was teaming up with Walmart Commerce Technologies to sell and implement a software package solution called Store Assist to make pickups, deliveries and shipping from stores more efficient. Infosys has a Consumer and Retail focused practice that has helped more than 190 retailers worldwide to modernise their operations to be able to take real advantage of data and analytics, according to the press release. Separately, Infosys also said that it is extending its collaboration with Brent Council in the UK to make its digital learning platform, Springboard, available to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Pilani Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Society, the technology business incubator at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, has teamed up with Microsoft to set up an incubation cell at the institute. PIED and Microsoft have signed an MoU to foster startups and support entrepreneurs, BITS said in a press release. Nasscom, India’s biggest technology lobby, yesterday released findings of a study that looked at patents filed in India and points out that India is doing poorly and has much work to do. In FY22, patent filings increased 13.6 percent over the previous fiscal year, Nasscom said in a press release. The share of domestic filings increased to 44.4 percent of all patents filed, compared with 41.6 percent in FY21. Only 20 patents are filed in India per million population, compared with 1,770 in Japan, as of 2021. And the average time an application remains pending is three times longer in India as against Japan. There are 300 applications filed in India for every $100 billion of GDP, versus 5,738 in China. Based on data from WIPO, Nasscom’s analysis shows that more than two-thirds of all patents filed worldwide, at 67.6 percent, were in Asia. This compared with 54.6 percent in 2011. China, by far, leads the patent filings in Asia, accounting for 46.6 percent of all patents filed worldwide. The US is next, at 17.4 percent. Japan accounted for 8.5 percent and South Korea for 7 percent. India’s share was an insignificant 1.8 percent.