‘Hit with invisibility’: Small Karnataka firm battles AI giant Anthropic over name

The complaint, filed in a commercial court in Karnataka, claims the local company has been using the name “Anthropic” since 2017 and is the prior user of the title.

The court has issued fresh summons to the US-based AI firm, which opened its first India office in Bengaluru earlier this week as part of its expansion plans.

Speaking to NDTV, Belagavi-based Anthropic Software founder and director Mohammad Ayyaz Mulla said the presence of the global firm has already impacted his business.

“Even though we are smaller, we are the prior user of the brand name,” Mulla said. “We are known as Anthropic within our customers and new customers.”

Highlighting the impact on his company, he added, “I am hit with invisibility, complete invisibility.”

As part of its India expansion strategy, Anthropic last month appointed Irina Ghose as its Managing Director for India.

Meanwhile, Infosys announced a strategic collaboration with Anthropic to develop and deliver advanced enterprise AI solutions across sectors including telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, and software development.

The partnership will initially focus on telecommunications through a dedicated Anthropic Center of Excellence to build and deploy AI agents tailored to industry-specific operations. It will later expand into other industries.

The collaboration integrates Anthropic’s Claude models, including Claude Code, with Infosys’ Topaz AI offerings to help enterprises automate complex workflows, accelerate software development, and adopt AI with enhanced governance and transparency.