Xiaomi gets a breather from High Court

In a relief to Xiaomi Technology, on June 1, Delhi High Court allowed it to send back its Redmi Note 3G handsets, whose sale has been banned in India on Ericsson’s plea alleging patent violation by the Chinese mobile phone maker.

A vacation bench of Justice Mukta Gupta 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 court directed Xiaomi to maintain an inventory of the handsets, currently lying unused with e-commerce site Flipkart through which the Chinese company sells its phones under an exclusive arrangement.

Advocate Ajit Warrier, appearing for the Chinese firm, said its phones like Redmi Note 3G, which run on a Mediatek processor, have been prohibited from sale in India by the high court.

He said the company was only allowed by the court to sell its Qualcomm chipset-based phones and thus, the other varieties are lying unused with Flipkart.

On December 8, 2014, Xiaomi and Flipkart were restrained by the court from selling in India handsets that run on the technology patented by Ericsson.

Ericsson has alleged infringements of its patents relating to these technologies by Xiaomi.