Court allows Xiaomi to sell Qualcomm-powered handsets in India

BANGALORE, INDIA: If you are eagerly waiting for Redmi Note, there is a good news for you. The 4G version of Redmi Note was supposed to go on sale today on Flipkart. But the sale stopped due to an ex-parte injunction order from the Delhi High Court in a patent infringement case filed by Ericsson against Xiaomi.

The Delhi high court, however, has given some relief to the Chinese handset manufacturer today by lifting the ban partially. The court has permitted it to import and sell smartphones in India, till January 8, 2015, if they are powered by Qualcomm's chipsets, which is a licensee of Ericsson.

This means they can continue selling the entry-level Redmi 1S that is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor as well as the 4G variant of the Redmi Note, which again is powered by a 1.6GHz Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor.

The ruling came in following an appeal filed by Xiaomi. Xiaomi was also told to deposit Rs.100 for every device it has sold or sells now onwards in India.

Following the earlier court order, Hugo Barra, head of international operations at Xiaomi took to Facebook to clarify the issue and reassured the Mi fans that they are "investigating the matter carefully and assessing legal options".

Though the court came down hard on Xiaomi in this case and banned the sale in India, but this is not the first time that Ericsson has filed a patent infringement case against any handset maker.  Before Xiaomi, Ericsson had filed various patent violation cases against other smartphones makers such as Gionee, Intex, Acer and Samsung as well.

It will be interesting to watch whether these permitted devices come on sale again on Flipkart this month, or  the vendor opts for a go slow strategy till the next hearing on this matter.