Xiaomi acquires 1,500 patents from Microsoft

Xiaomi's smartphones and tablets would soon come with Microsoft Office, Skype and Android under a new partnership deal, the companies announced.

The six-year-old Chinese smartphone company is buying 1,500 technology patents from Microsoft and would install Microsoft Office productivity suite and Skype on its Android-based smartphones and tablets under a new partnership deal.

The deals, unveiled on 31 May, would see  Xiaomi acquire a huge cache of patents relating to wireless communications, video, cloud technologies and multimedia, a Microsoft spokesman told eWEEK in an email reply to an inquiry.

"This agreement reflects the deep respect Xiaomi and Microsoft have for intellectual property rights," the spokesman said. "The companies are committed to a healthy patent system and standing against the abusive practices we've seen at times in our industry."

The companies would also cross-license their technologies, as per their joint announcement, but no details of that deal were released.

With the agreement mobile users would get the ability to work, collaborate and communicate using the mobile devices of their choice, they added.

"We are excited to be working closely with Microsoft on a broad technology collaboration partnership," Xiang Wang, a senior vice president at Xiaomi, said in a statement.

"As demonstrated by this agreement with Microsoft, Xiaomi is looking to build sustainable, long-term partnerships with global technology leaders, with the ultimate goal of bringing the best user experience to our Mi fans."

Meanwhile, according to Zach Epstein writing for bgr.com, Xiaomi which started out copying Apple, but later cut down on the practice as it met commercial success, was now preparing to sell its smartphones in the US for the first time.

He added that with Asian markets finally starting to cool, Xiaomi's shipments fell 9 per cent in the first quarter, and it needed to look elsewhere for expansion.

The move to purchase patents from Microsoft, had much to do with the fact that it was a new company in the mobile space and had precious little patent protection.

Companies like Apple, Samsung and LG, could bring any number of patent infringement claims against each other, which had a restraining effect against such litigation. With the new Microsoft deal, Xiaomi too had purchased some protection in the crucial area, according to Epstein.