Xiaomi to send back one lakh Redmi Note 3G smartphones which were lying unused with Flipkart.
The Delhi High Court has allowed Xiaomi to send back its one lakh Redmi Note 3G handsets, whose sale has been banned in India on Ericsson's plea alleging patent violation by the Chinese mobile phone maker.
The decision was taken by a vacation bench of Justice Mukta Gupta, which permitted Xiaomi to return over one lakh handsets to their point of origin in Hong Kong, after Swedish telecom firm Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson agreed to the arrangement. The handsets have been lying unused with e-commerce retailer Flipkart which had an exclusive arrangement with Xiaomi to sell its mobile phones. Advocate Ajit Warrier stated that the phone which run on a Mediatek processor, have been prohibited from sale in India by the high court, so the variety are lying unused with Flipkart. Last year Chinese handset maker Xiaomi had been banned from selling, manufacturing, advertising or importing its handsets in New Delhi after Ericsson sued Xiaomi for infringement of Standard Essential Patents. The company has alleged infringements of its patents relating to these technologies by Xiaomi. Later the High Court had granted Xiaomi permission on 'pro tem' basis to sell Qualcomm based devices in India. However, the company has been banned to sell devices running on other processors or chipsets online. Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3G smartphone runs on Mediatek processor so its sale has been banned in the country. The court had granted the injunction after Xiaomi failed to respond to Ericsson’s repeated communications about the problem.
A Standard Essential Patent is the patent for the core technology essential to create something of a particular technical standard. Ericsson has over 35000 patents relating to mobile technology. The company has filed similar legal suits against domestic vendor Micromax, Intex and Gionee regarding infringements of patents pertaining to 2G and 3G wireless technologies. Ericsson has entered an interim licence agreement with Micromax for now which the company has to pay Ericsson 0.8 to 1% royalty on every device it sold that uses the Swedish company’s technologies. In a statement, Micromax said it is "committed to negotiating a FRAND licence with Ericsson as Ericsson has undertaken to providing a FRAND licence to Micromax".
Source: The Hindu
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