New Delhi: Delhi high court has put paid to Xiaomi’s surging sales juggernaut in India. At least for now.
Hearing a case filed by Ericsson India against Xiaomi, the court on Monday passed an ex parte order forbidding the popular Chinese manufacturer from importing and selling its smartphones in India, according to a report by Spicy IP.
Though we are yet to read the judgement, it has been reported that the ex parte order has injuncted Xiaomi from selling, advertising, manufacturing or importing devices that infringe the SEPs (Standard, Essential Patents) in question. It is not clear if the order will impact all Xiaomi devices sold in India or specifica devices that violate the patents.
In fact, the judge also directed the customs officials to stop the imports under the IPR Rules, 2007. Moreover, local commissioners too have been appointed to visit Xiaomi India offices to ensure the implementation of the order.
The adverse order in the case seems to have come about after Xiaomi allegedly ignored Ericsson’s repeated communications.
As per the report, the patents in the Xiaomi case may also be the same ones which are the subject matters of litigation Ericsson had put up against Micromax, Gionee and Intex.
It’s worth pointing out that Delhi High Court had earlier asked homegrown handset maker Micromax to pay a royalty that amounts up to 1% of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson for using the Swedish equipment maker’s patents on technologies that are essential to manufacture the products.
Speaking on reports, Xiaomi India head Manu Jain informed that the company hasn’t officially received any communication from the court or Ericsson. He said that India was an important market for Xiaomi and that the company’s legal team was evaluating the situation based on reports in the media. Jain added that Xiaomi intends to be in full compliance of all laws and is open to working with Ericsson to settle the dispute.
Xiaomi had launched its India operations in July 2014 and the country is the second largest market for the company and also the fastest growing one, as per Xiaomi Global VP Hugo Barra. The company had sold more than half a million smartphones till October. It sells phones exclusively through online marketplace Flipkart via weekly flash sales in limited numbers. The company has been panned for creating hype and artificial scarcity with claims to go out of stock in a few seconds. It stopped selling its flagship smartphone, Mi 3, after just one month of introducing it selling a 120,000 units.
Xiaomi sells one phone model at a time and is currently offering the Redmi Note phablet. Its premium smartphone, Mi 4, is expected to launch in Q1 2015.
