On Tuesday the Delhi High Court granted an interim relief to Xiaomi, allowing it to sell devices which are powered by Snapdragon based devices. According to the court order, Indian handset manufacturer, Micromax has been granted an injunction as the OnePlus One infringes its exclusive right to have the Cyanogen OS software in India.
“Gurgaon-based consumer electronics manufacturer Micromax Informatics Ltd on Tuesday secured a temporary injunction from the Delhi high court against rival Chinese phone maker Shenzhen OnePlus Technology Co. Ltd.,” according to a report.
The injunction just comes days before Micromax launches its YU smartphone brand on the 18th of December, which will be powered by Cyanogen OS. The court restrained OnePlus from marketing, selling, and shipping its OnePlus mobiles in India. The company was barred from shipping any stock to India bearing the mark Cyanogen from Tuesday.
In the meantime, the court has allowed the company, which launched its OnePlus One phones in India through e-commerce website Amazon.in on December 2, to clear its stock. OnePlus had brought only 20,000 units to India. Micromax had filed a law suite seeking to restrain OnePlus from infringing the exclusive rights it has acquired by an “ambient services and application distributions agreement” with US-based software developing company Cyanogen Inc.
Cyanogen specialises in the modification of the Android operating system and through this agreement, Micromax was given an exclusive licence to integrate and distribute Cyanogen’s technology as a part of its devices in India. Micromax complained that by launching its phones on 2 December, OnePlus had infringed its exclusive rights under the agreement with Cyanogen.
The Indian mobile manufacturing company claimed that it had “incurred major expenses for creation of a brand exclusivity for providing to Indian customers mobile phones with Cyanogen operating systems,” and, “it would suffer irreparable harm and loss if the defendants (OnePlus) are permitted to continue with their illegal acts in violation of the agreement between Micromax and Cyanogen.”
On the other hand, Chinese phone maker claimed it had entered a collaboration agreement and trademark licence agreement with Cyanogen in February to use its trademark and software in the entire world except mainland China. The company also told the court that Cyanogen only informed it about the termination of their agreement a fortnight before its launch in India. As a result, while Micromax has an exclusive licence for South Asia, OnePlus has a non-exclusive licence for the entire world except China. Cyanogen has clarified that its agreement with Micromax supersedes all prior agreements.
(Also Read: 10 things you must know before buying the OnePlus One in India)
The Delhi High Court also noted that while OnePlus may sue Cyanogen for breach of contract, the same will be governed by the laws of the state of California as per the agreement between them, and OnePlus will not have a remedy in India.
We think that Cyanogen Inc. is responsible for this scenario as it has not awarded the rights to OnePlus, which were in their prior agreement, allowing Micromax to buy the rights for Cyanogen OS in India. What do you think about the mess which Cyanogen has created?
