The Delhi High Court has provided relief to
OnePlus by lifting the ban on the company’s phones which use Cyanogen software.
The judgement was made based on the assumption that the One cannot eat into the market share of
what the complainant (Micromax) has to offer.
The OnePlus One costs roughly Rs 22000, while the Yu Yureka Cyanogen phone carries a price of Rs 8999.
So it makes sense to argue that the former will be part of the higher end market as
compared to the latter, and therefore not so much of a threat. That’s until
Micromax rolls out a similarly pegged device one would think, but we don’t
claim to be legal experts.
As it stands for now, the HC has declared the December 16 ban
on sales of OnePlus smartphones to have been lifted and has arranged for the
case to be heard once again within a fortnight. The court also observed that it
was not enough to skim the subject before making a judgement. The exact details
of the software being used by the two opposing parties need examination.
It’s also important to closely inspect the
kind of deals Cyanogen made with OnePlus as well as Micromax. We’re not sure
why the first-mentioned allowed itself to be steered into such a sticky situation
seeing as it’s got a long way to go before it can offer stiff competition to
Google’s mobile OS. Now manufacturers are going to be saying ‘No thanks’ to the Android for considering the unfolding drama.
For those who’re not in the loop, after
OnePlus announced plans to bring the One into India, Micromax and Cyanogen made public a deal between them
which had the mobile brand
being awarded exclusive rights to sell devices running on the forked version of
Android in the country. It’s possible that too much faith has been placed in
the Indian brand at a stage when it’s not wise to do so.
OnePlus retaliated by saying that its
collaboration and trademark license agreement with
Cyanogen was terminated just one or two weeks before the launch of the One on
these shores. What’s more, its handset uses the CM11S version of the software
unlike Micromax’s, as reported by The Economic Times. It’s left to see whether the HC will
find enough cause for enforcing the ban again.