Last week, Xiaomi filed for a record IPO in Hong Kong, and yesterday, May 10, it was sued by a phone maker of Coolpad for patent infringement. Coolpad said that its subsidiary Yulong demanded that the three units of Xiaomi should stop production and sales of certain phones, including Mi Mix 2.
In a statement late on Thursday, Coolpad said that its subsidiary Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) Co Ltd had filed a lawsuit against Xiaomi Technology Co Ltd, Xiaomi Telecom Technology Co Ltd, and Xiaomi Factory Co Ltd. The filing was done in a court in Jiangsu Province.
Yulong filed a similar lawsuit against Xiaomi in January.
It is because the IP (intellectual property) protection environment in China improved that Coolpad launched the lawsuit in January this year. – Nancy Zhang, the global chief patent officer of Coolpad
She added that the latest lawsuit is not timed with Xiaomi’s upcoming IPO.
As per allegations by Coolpad, Xiaomi violated the patents of the former’s multi-SIM card design and other technologies related to UI. Zhang did not disclose any figure, but her company demanded that Xiaomi pays for all expenses relevant to the infringement.
Coolpad has not been enjoying itself lately, with its shares suspended since March 2017. It went through audit problems that delayed its 2016 annual report filing. The company could file this report only last month, and the 2017 report is naturally yet to be filed. As per the filed 2016 report, Coolpad suffered a loss of HK$4.38 billion, and it profited HK$2.32 billion the year before!
