Patent deals help Xiaomi expand

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp has announced its plan to sell $7.9 billion worth of its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in an aim to generate proceeds to cut debt.
Xiaomi Corp has bought nearly 1,500 technology patents from Microsoft Corp in a deal that may smoothen potential legal tangles over intellectual property as it pushes beyond China.


The patents cover wireless communications, video, cloud and multimedia technologies, spokeswoman Kaylene Hong said, without specifying the terms.


The acquisition came as part of a broader agreement announced on Wednesday with the US software giant, under which Microsoft Office and Skype will come pre-installed on devices made by the Chinese smartphone maker.


Xiaomi, which vies with Huawei Technologies Co for the title of China's biggest mobile brand, has begun selling phones in the emerging markets, but its lack of a wide-ranging mobile patents portfolio has been perceived as a stumbling block to a broader expansion into markets such as Europe or the United States. The company's push into India was met with a lawsuit from Ericsson AB.


"This will help our ease of operation in new markets," Hong said of the patents deal.


The deal also marks a rare sale of patents by Microsoft to a company in China, where it is facing a government antitrust investigation while simultaneously trying to fight piracy.


Microsoft moved into phone production almost two years ago when it bought Nokia's handset division for $9.5 billion in a bid to make the company relevant in consumer computing beyond PCs. The company has since written down most of that purchase and in May agreed to sell its feature phone business to FIH Mobile Ltd and HMD Global for $350 million.


The article transsshipment from China Daily