中国手机制造商能否跨越知识产权障碍成功扎根海外？

    小米在印度的诉讼并非个案。爱立信也曾对印度企业Micromax和另一家中国智能手机制造商金立（Gionee）提出过诉讼。金立手机近年来在印度的经营也相当成功。该公司总裁卢伟冰11月份在深圳总部接受笔者采访时，提到了他们和爱立信的诉讼案。当被问到中国手机制造商纷纷开拓印度市场，是否是因为印度和中国一样，在专利管理方面没有西欧或美国那么严格时，卢先生打断了记者的提问，表示“在印度，你是不能回避知识产权问题的”，并举出爱立信的诉讼案作为例证。

    小米应该也意识到了这一点。

    多年来，中国的智能手机制造商缺乏专利已经是业内共知的事实。爱立信在印度的诉讼是小米在中国这一有利的市场边界之外，首尝知识产权障碍。中国的法院系统在美国公司InterDigital一案中中设定了非常低的专利使用费，而根据高通公司（Qualcomm）的条款，使用高通公司芯片（几乎所有公司都是如此）的各智能手机制造商之间不能互相提起争端。

    如果小米能够和爱立信迅速了结在印度的争端，那么这一段插曲只会被当作小米全球扩张途中掀起的一道波澜。（财富中文网）

    译者：南风

    审校：Patti

    Xiaomi’s case in India isn’t isolated. Ericsson ERIC -1.31% has filed suits against Indian-firms including Micromax and a separate Chinese smartphone maker Gionee, which has run a successful business in India for years. Gionee’s president William Lu told me about the case in a November interview at Gionee headquarters in Shenzhen. I asked him if Chinese smartphone vendors had expanded to India because like China, it has a reputation for lax patent enforcement when compared to Western Europe or the U.S. Lu stopped me. “Being in India, you cannot avoid the IP issue,” he said, and offered the Ericsson dispute as proof.

    Xiaomi must have realized the same thing this week.

    The Chinese smartphone makers’ lack of patents has been known for years. Ericsson’s suit in India is the first taste of the IP hurdle Xiaomi faces outside the favorable confines of China, where the court system established low royalty rates in a case involving the U.S. company InterDigital and under Qualcomm’s terms, the smartphone makers don’t file disputes against one another if they use Qualcomm chips (which almost all do).

    If Xiaomi quickly settles with Ericsson in India, the episode might be seen as just a hurdle in Xiaomi’s global expansion.