OnePlus banned from selling phones in India

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Looking to get a OnePlus One in India? Well the phone is going to be even harder to buy, than usual. Following an order from the Delhi High Court, OnePlus is now banned from selling, marketing, or even importing the OnePlus One in India.

The order comes after Indian phone brand Micromax, which is launching a new brand of Cyanogen-powered phones under a new ‘YU’ brand tomorrow, complained to the Delhi High Court that OnePlus infringed on their India-exclusivity agreement with Cyanogen.

Micromax claims that they had “incurred major expenses for creation of a brand exclusivity for providing to Indian customers mobile phones with Cyanogen operating systems” and “it would suffer irreparable harm and loss if the defendants (OnePlus) are permitted to continue with their illegal acts in violation of the agreement between Micromax and Cyanogen”.


http://unleashthephones.com/2014/12/17/oneplus-banned-from-selling-phones-in-india/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed: ZomgItsCj (UnleashThePhones - Mobile Phone News, Reviews and More)
 
Why is micromax doing this?
The common public will not care about cyanogenmod.
I can't ever see them using features like profiles or even status bar mods.
The only thing they are likely to use is the cm theme switcher. And when a particular theme breaks their UI, they will run to the service centre to complain.
Now imagine guys at micromax. Service centre grappling with ADB and fastboot and whatnot.
Micromax should have simply rebranded one plus one and sold it as "micromax canvas knightly turbo gold, logan edition.
 
I guess Micromax must have either lobbied or paid to buy out the judge. How can somebody get an exclusivity on something that was already announced in the local market. MMX is yet to reveal their brand officially. One Plus had announced their entry even before rumour of MMX deal came out.

In any case, Entities like CyanogenMod don't need to exist. OnePlus also had a deal with CyanogenMod, but just because MMX is paid more, they agreed to make it an exclusive deal out of nowhere and stopped supporting OnePlus. What next, if somebody else pays even more than MMX, would that make them void the deal with MMX?

This whole fiasco is going to have an impact that is not limited to this. Other companies will also start taking advantage this kind of strategies to cut out and damage their competition.
 
[QUOTE="Lord Nemesis, post: 2002914, member: 632"]I guess Micromax must have either lobbied or paid to buy out the judge. How can somebody get an exclusivity on something that was already announced in the local market. MMX is yet to reveal their brand officially. One Plus had announced their entry even before rumour of MMX deal came out.

In any case, Entities like CyanogenMod don't need to exist. OnePlus also had a deal with CyanogenMod, but just because MMX is paid more, they agreed to make it an exclusive deal out of nowhere and stopped supporting OnePlus. What next, if somebody else pays even more than MMX, would that make them void the deal with MMX?

This whole fiasco is going to have an impact that is not limited to this. Other companies will also start taking advantage this kind of strategies to cut out and damage their competition.[/QUOTE]



Do you even know law or contract or IPR?
 
^^ It doesn't make sense to me at least. One Plus also has a deal with Cyanogen to bundle their OS in their phones and sell them globally except in china. I am not sure, but they must have also paid money for it from the looks of it.

Now Cyanogen goes behind their back and make a deal with a new entity because they are willing to pay more money and they come out and say that they now have an exclusivity deal and Cyanogen will no longer support One Plus One in some countries and that is also just on the eve of One Plus launching the product in one of said countries incurring various marketing and other costs.

Where did this exclusivity come in between? Did they have it as an option to One Plus before the One Plus's deal. Did they have any clauses about inability to support One Plus in case of exclusive deals.

If they have not covered all these aspects in One Plus's contract, then it sure looks like breach of contract to me.
 
This is all too wrong.. cyanogen always stood for opensource development.. or so I felt. Now It feels somebody has 'bought' opensource.. sounds sick:wtf:
 
aka911 said:
It was always a breakable contract between cyanogenmod and one plus.

It was ab initio from the outset.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_(law)
Click to expand...

Any source for that info? Have they mentioned somewhere that they their contract with OnePlus is voidable?

AFAIK, the cyanogenmod on OPO was made specifically for OnePlus which I assume must have a contract and finance behind it if we are to assume that One Plus was serious about running their company. You don't run business on mere goodwill partnerships.

I am pretty sure that if Cyanogen have had pulled something like this in US, then both OnePlus and Cyanogen would have been sued by their users. Not only did OnePlus advertise and highlight CyanogenMod as a big USP, Cyanogen has themselves marketed One Plus One.

In any case, if this is how Cyanogen works, How are users to be sure that the same gimmick won't be pulled by them against MMX as well as soon as somebody else comes to them asking for worldwide exclusivity.
 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Shit just got real. It did got worse just like I thought it would. Micromax please do us a favor and go kill yourself. Those money whores in CyanogenMod can also do the same. HAHAHAHAHAH *dies laughing*
 
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Lord Nemesis said:
^^ It doesn't make sense to me at least. One Plus also has a deal with Cyanogen to bundle their OS in their phones and sell them globally except in china. I am not sure, but they must have also paid money for it from the looks of it.

Now Cyanogen goes behind their back and make a deal with a new entity because they are willing to pay more money and they come out and say that they now have an exclusivity deal and Cyanogen will no longer support One Plus One in some countries and that is also just on the eve of One Plus launching the product in one of said countries incurring various marketing and other costs.

Where did this exclusivity come in between? Did they have it as an option to One Plus before the One Plus's deal. Did they have any clauses about inability to support One Plus in case of exclusive deals.

If they have not covered all these aspects in One Plus's contract, then it sure looks like breach of contract to me.
Click to expand...
Does not make much sense but here is a partial explanation, they even got a copy of the HC order if anyone wants to browse it.
 
Hmm, I guess Cyanogen really did pull a fast one on One Plus as I thought. I don't think they would think twice about doing the same with MMX if and when such a situation arises.
In any case, I for one, will never ever buy or recommend any product that has anything to do with Cyanogen. Cyanogen may have made its share of contributions, but they are a shitty corporate now and do not deserve any support from the people.
 
Stop painting OnePlus as the victim people.
OnePlus knew the exact terms of the CM and Micromax deal before hand. The proof is that OnePlus is never going to sue CM.
Also CM has only a 2 year deal with OnePlus, thus CM would always go for a better deal with MMX
OnePlus knew that without CM there would be few takers for the phone so they decided to go ahead selling phones with CM inspite of knowing that it is illegal.
Now that they have a customer base in India they can roll out their own rom and we indians are going to be the beta testers for their rom

The real fun will begin if CM comes out with a way which prevents users from flashing CM rom on other Indian devices including OnePlus One
 
^^ Oh please don't try to overrate CyanogenMod. Its pretty far from being a system seller on its own. One Plus One is a decent phone on its own even without CyanogenMod.
How many people in India are going to buy this Yu branded MMX phone just because it has CyanogenMod rather than just because its another cheap phone with decent sounding specs?

One Plus has been marketing their entry into India long before any details about MMX deal came out. In fact I even think the timing of the deal being revealed was planned to ensure damage to One Plus. One Plus never advertised that their devices would continue with CyanogenMod. They were pretty transparent about it and announced that they will update the Indian units to a new custom build as soon as its ready even before they started making any sales. The only problem is that they don't have any stop gap solution in between and they probably stand to loose a lot because of the timing used for revealing MMX's contract.

Lawsuits are costly affairs, especially for start ups, so its obvious that One Plus will likely not sue them. that is at least not till they have an alternative version of OS ready. Otherwise what happens if Cyanogen decides to declare that they won't support One Plus anywhere across the world. It would be more damaging to One Plus than anybody else and they would go bankrupt before the case gets anywhere.
Cyanogen most likely thought all that already and decided it would be no big deal to breach any contract that they had with One Plus in favor of a contract with MMX.

As for the court order in India itself, I think the judgement itself was arbitrary. The main contention was that the phones that the One Plus ones sold in India had the Cyanogen branding. Does MMX have any trademarks over Cyanogen branding in India currently? I don't recall there being any mention of that in the order. MMX agreement was with Cyanogen, so if they had any issues, it should be Cyanogen that they ought to be suing and in the relevant jurisdictions and if anybody can sue One Plus, it ought be Cyanogen.
 
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