The launch of the Yu Yutopia has been delayed to December 17, 10 days after it was supposed to be unveiled. The official reason for the postponement is that the brand plans to announce something special with the handset.
This information about the Yu Yutopia comes via a tweet by Rahul Sharma, the company’s CEO. However, the delay comes in the midst of a Delhi High Court order that has issued bailable warrants against him, Sumeet Kumar and Vikas Jain. The 3 promoters of the manufacturer are being held in contempt of court for failure to pay royalty fees to Ericsson.
To recall, the equipment maker had sued Micromax, which owns Yu Televentures, for utilizing its patents without any payment. The India-based brand was made to pay 1% of the price of its devices, which was agreed at Rs 55 crore post negotiations. Ericsson later found that Yu was still infringing on its patents and pursued legal action against the company.
According to Live Mint, Yu fought back against the claim by stating that it was a separate legal entity and the injunction did not apply to it as such. Justice Nazmi Waziri has rejected this argument, asserting that the 3 directors of the company were well aware of the order and tried to sneak past it by pretending to be a subsidiary enterprise.
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Neeraj Kishan Kaul, the senior advocate for Ericsson, further pointed out that a statement of sales had showed Yu and Micromax both had the same agent, effectively invalidating the argument that the 2 brands were independent of each other. He went on to suggest Yu was only formed to circumvent the patent injunction.
The Delhi HC responded to this by noting that Yu had been established in 2014, which was before it passed the order. The court has set December 15 as the day for further hearing of the case. We’ll have to wait and see if the Yu Yutopia does indeed come out on December 17 as planned.