Qualcomm on Wednesday announced that it has entered into a 3G and 4G China patent license agreement with Xiaomi, the popular Chinese smartphone maker. According to the agreement, Qualcomm will let Xiaomi manufacture and sell 3G (WCDMA and CDMA2000) and 4G, including 3-mode (LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA and GSM), complete devices.
"Xiaomi prides itself on embracing and leading smartphone innovation through its popular line of Mi devices," said Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi. "A license from Qualcomm will play an important role in helping us bring the newest and most innovative products to our growing customer base."
With the necessary patents in place, Xiaomi may now have enough protection to prevent Ericsson from coming after the company in India. It's worth noting that Ericsson had got a court order to suspend sale of all Xiaomi smartphones in India, but the court later granted relief to Xiaomi, by allowing it to sell Qualcomm-powered handsets. This means the company is not able to sell smartphones powered by MediaTek chipsets like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Redmi Note 2, and Redmi Note.
Ericsson says that Xiaomi has been violating eight of its patents pertaining to AMR, EDGE and 3G technologies in the field of telecommunication. The company last year said it had invited Xiaomi to use its patented technology by obtaining a licence, but instead of doing so, the Chinese manufacturer launched its devices in India in July 2014. With the Qualcomm patents deal in place, it's possible that Ericsson will need to drop the litigation against Xiaomi, though we'll need to wait until things are official.
Written with agency inputs.
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