As per the report from SpicyIP the Delhi high court passed an ex parte on Monday that will ban Xiaomi from selling and even importing handsets in India. The ban was for infringement of Ericsson’s patents.
Ex Parte is when court passes an order in a hurry depending on the urgency hearing only one of the parties involved. However Manu Jain (India Head – Xiaomi) via an email to NDTV has mentioned that they have not yet received the notice from the Delhi high court and their legal team is evaluating the matter. They will respond in full compliance with the law. He also mentioned they are open to working with Ericsson to resolve the matter if needed.
This is not the first time Ericsson has filed suit, they had filed a lawsuit against Samsung and recently against Micromax. As per SpiceIP the Court under IPR Rules (Intellectual Property Rights) 2007 has directed the Indian customs officials to stop the company (Xiaomi) from importing goods into India.
The SpicyIP website also concluded that
“Delhi High Court’s injunction order is not in conformance either with international practice or domestic case law”
Ever since Xiaomi entered the Indian markets, it is facing a lot of challenges in India. There was the IAF controversy and now the Ericsson suit. I am not sure how this will affect the sales, but lets wait and watch.
Update : Ericsson’s statement to TechCrunch – Xiaomi were unfairly using their SEP i.e. Standard Essential Patents, they tried communicating with Xiaomi for the same for more than 3 years and as a last resort asked for an injunction from the Court.