In the face of innovation and innovation protection, between large and small companies, and between companies and individuals, are equal.
Millet new inflection point, is not coming again?
IDC released data show that the third quarter of 2017 millet handset shipments reached about 27.6 million, re-enter the top five in the global sales of smart phones.In addition, millet Lei Jun also began a new high profile.
However, the turning point in the end to recover from the bottom, or a brief recovery back to the bottom, I am afraid it can not be easily concluded.
Take this year's 'Double 11' as an example, the glory of the Internet brand of mobile phone against Huawei under the flag of Xiaomi has achieved an all-out defeat of Xiaomi. It not only leads Xiaodou well in the Jingdong platform, but also sums the dual platform of 'Jingdong + Tmall' , Millet only in the Lynx single platform ahead of glory.
It is worth mentioning that after the newly released red rice Note 5A released by Xiaomi, it was questioned on the alleged patent infringement just after it was released. The "one machine, three troughs" Cato structure adopted by it was challenged to infringe on the patent rights enjoyed by others.
In fact, this has been the first time for Xiaomi mobile phones involved in the swipe of patent infringement due to new release, so these millet or its mobile phone products for patent infringement challenge, in the end is its big trick, others took the opportunity to speculation? Or millet itself Patent layout is not perfect due?
Short Board: Millet own patent for many years to catch up catch-up
On December 11, 2014, Xiaomi was sued in India by Ericsson to India's Delhi High Court for allegedly infringing 8 patents owned by Ericsson such as ARM, EDGE, 3G and other related technologies.
This is the layout of millet patents or patent inadequate cooperation for the first time on suspicion of patent infringement upper body.
Subsequently, Xiaomi Co. took the initiative to "exorbitant blood" and temporarily obtained the continued sales of Qualcomm-branded mobile phones in accordance with the condition of "depositing INR 100 in court for each device." For mobile phones equipped with MediaTek chips, status.
However, millet's "upward" trend in India at the time also suffered a major setback.
On November 19, 2015, Xiaomi was sued by a NPE called BlueSpike to the Marshall Branch of the US East Texas Commonwealth District Court, accusing Millet of selling smart communications equipment through Tomtop on suspicion of infringing on its patents in the United States.
Since then, millet increased independent research and development efforts and patent applications, in addition, it is also actively beginning to acquire patents overseas.
On October 23, 2015, Xiaomi acquired 31 wireless communications patents from Broadcom Corp. On February 4, 2016, Xiaomi purchased 332 U.S. patents from the U.S. chip giant Intel, covering storage management, control logic, Serial code, computer package, handheld terminal, circuit board ', etc. On June 1, 2016, Xiaomi again purchased 1,500 patents from Microsoft.
In July 2017, according to the cooperation between Nokia and Xiaomi, millet purchased some patents from Nokia.
Trouble: Independent innovation seems to keep up with patent infringement
Although millet in independent research and development and patent acquisition continue to increase two efforts, however, around the millet phones and other products, related to patent infringement or litigation litigation continued unfolding.
For example, in the published full-screen mobile phone, the millet MIX2 design is still unique, but some people question the design of the Sharp AQUOS CRYSTAL X mobile phone plagiarism.
In addition, the millet red rice series phone seems to have become the allegedly infringed 'hardest hit.'
In June 2017, Red Rice pro, one of the shortest-life mobile phones in the history of red rice, was fortunate to have its cell phone dual-camera accessory sued for courtsuits due to a patent infringement on its rear dual camera program Yes, millet companies themselves have not been prosecuted simultaneously.
The most recent patent-related dispute was the Red Rice Note 5A, which allegedly infringes the Cato structure of a three-slot machine.
In fact, a three-slot Cato structure, including 'double card dual standby' + 'memory expansion' structure design, has been an individual named Jiang Chunxiang on December 15, 2016 early application for a utility model patent And was authorized on July 18, 2017.
Through the patent comparison, the red rice Note 5A a three-slot Cato structure is indeed held with Jiang Chunxiang's 'a card slot with three card Cat' is basically the same.
Doubt: Red rice is more than non-people? Or store big bully?
According to the information that has been disclosed so far, the Patent is still under the expiration date. The red rice Note 5A adopts the structural design and has not obtained the permission of the patentee.
As a result, Red Rice Note 5A was found to have a very high probability of constituting a patent infringement if it could not "repeal" the patent through a patent invalidation procedure.
According to the public data, in the past few years, there were not less than 30 utility model patents in Xiaomi being invalidated by others. Among them, 15 patents were declared null and void, 7 patents were partially invalidated, and only 8 patents were still valid .
In short, millet's own patent quality is not stable, although it has increased patent applications and layout efforts, but it can not completely eliminate the possibility of milky products may infringe the patent.
Therefore, the most important thing is not own all the patents, but for the business or mobile phone products necessary patents, it has obtained the appropriate permission, otherwise, these risks are not removed, sooner or later bring their business or products Huge risk.
It is especially noteworthy that mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi need to be wary of abuse of their dominance in maliciously infringing the patent rights of other mobile handset manufacturers such as delays in reaching patent licensing agreements and delays in using them in the name of negotiation Pay related fees.
After all, there is equality between innovation and innovation protection, between small and large companies, and between companies and individuals.