Xiaomi offers apology.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: After the interim order of the Delhi High Court restricting sales, promotion and import of the smartphones made by Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi, its online retail partner in India, Flipkart has closed registrations for Redmi Note, which was scheduled to go on sale next week.
According to the Delhi High Court ruling, Xiaomi is prohibited from selling smartphones in India till February 5th next year. The order was passed after it heard the petition filed by Ericsson alleging violation of its patent laws. SpicyIP had earlier reported that the court ruling had mentions about Flipkart as it was also implicated in the plea field by Ericsson.
The Mi store in the Flipkart website says, “Registration for Redmi Note has been closed. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
Flipkart’s premature closure of the registration is seen as the company’s compliance to the court order that has forbidden any type of promotion of Xiaomi devices.
Hugo Barra, the Vice President of Xiaomi posted a letter in his Facebook page addressing Indian Mi fans. He wrote, “However, we have been forced to suspend sales in India until further notice due to an order passed by the Delhi High Court. As a law abiding company, we are investigating the matter carefully and assessing our legal options.”
He also added that the company received 15,000 registrations for the upcoming sales of Redmi Note, which has been suspended following the Delhi High Court ruling.
The interim order was passed by the Delhi High court following the pea of Ericsson accusing Xiaomi of infringing patent of its eight technologies that includes AMR, EDGE and 3G.
This is not that first time that Ericsson has moved court accusing smartphone manufacturers of flouting patent laws. Earlier, Micromax and Samsung were also sued by Ericsson on similar grounds. According to Ericsson, Xiaomi can use their patented technology by obtaining a licence for which the Chinese manufacture has to pay a significant share of the selling price.
According to the official statement of Ericsson, they took legal action “after more than 3 years of attempts to engage in a licensing conversation in good faith, for products compliant with the GSM, EDGE, and UMTS/WCDMA standards Xiaomi continues to refuse to respond in any way regarding a fair license to Ericsson’s intellectual property on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.”
It should be also noted that Ericsson, a company that has not been active in the smartphone industry for some years, earns significant revenue from the licences bought by manufacturers for its patented technologies. It’s highly unlikely that Ericsson would put more pressure on Xiaomi as the Chinese brand is becoming a major player in Indian smartphone industry; more importantly a major revenue generator for Ericsson in the future.
In the official statement of Xiaomi, the company has shown determination to settle the patent issues with Ericsson. They said “India is a very important market for Xiaomi and we will respond promptly as needed and in full compliance with India laws. Moreover, we are open to working with Ericsson to resolve this matter amicably.”