Xiaomi to Resume Sales in India

Originally published in Chinese on yicai.com on December 16

On the evening of December 16, Xiaomi's official micro-blog revealed a High Court verdict issued from Delhi, India, allowing the resumption of Xiaomi phone sales in India. "The Redmi (红米) 1S orders will begin tomorrow, and next week will be publicly available. We plan to start selling the Redmi Note 4G in the new year. We will continue to provide more quality, affordable Xiaomi products for India," Xiaomi posted.

On December 11, according to Indian media reports, the Delhi High Court ruled that Xiaomi was in violation of Ericsson standard-essential patent (SEP) laws, and issued an injunction requiring Xiaomi to stop selling and importing mobile phones in India.

"Xiaomi benefits hugely from our R & D investments and yet refused to pay a reasonable license fee for our technology, which is not fair." Ericsson said in a response issued in First Financial Daily. Over the past three years, Ericsson has been trying get Xiaomi, GSM and EDGE to comply with UMTS / WCDMA standards and hold honest dialogues on patent licensing matters. However, Xiaomi has always refused on the basis of a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles. Xiaomi has refused to respond to Ericsson's IP licensing charges every step of the way. Ericsson said that the company would take legal action only as a last resort. Legal proceedings are currently ongoing.

At the time of the injunction, Xiaomi responded by saying, "the company has not yet received official notice from the Delhi High Court. Our legal team will assess this."

Intellectual property issues are hanging over Xiaomi's international business like the sword of sword of Damocles.

In October of this year, Xiaomi's intellectual property issues Xiaomi were one of the key questions at the Wass Street Journal's WSJ.D Live conference. There are some rivals of Xiaomi who believe its expansion into the US and Europe is likely to face a large number of patent infringement lawsuits.

However, Xiaomi executives have responded that the number of patents Xiaomi has in China and abroad are garnering the company a lot of authority. The risk of litigation in decision-making about Xiaomi's international expansion "is not the determining factor."

On patent issues, Xiaomi has reportedly been vigilant and has taken initiative. Xiaomi began to apply to set up a year patent, First Financial Daily reporters retrieved information on the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office website, according to which Xiaomi's first patent application filing date was in 2010 December 27 for "a way to add contact information.”

Reporters found 1546 patent applications filed for Xiaomi Technology, which included 1443 inventions, 31 utility model patents, 12 authorised inventions and 72 designs.