Corporate China | WEIBO TALK: Xiaomi celebrates, Jumei mired in class action suits

Quiet has fallen over much of the Chinese blogosphere in this week before Christmas, though buzz was lingering around smartphone sensation Xiaomi as it wrestled with a patent dispute that threatened to halt its nascent overseas expansion. Xiaomi chief Lei Jun was also full of congratulations for his company as it scored a court victory that partially lifted an order banning the sale of its phones in India. Meantime, Lei's many friends and admirers were offering their congratulations as Xiaomi's co-founder celebrated his 45th birthday.

Meantime, another courtroom battle saw the chief executive of online cosmetics seller Jumei International (Nasdaq: JMEI) reacting to a series of class action shareholder lawsuits filed against his firm last week. This kind of lawsuit is quite common, and usually comes anytime bad news causes a stock to suddenly drop. Still, the case was obviously an eye-opener for Jumei CEO Chen Ou, and serves as a good reminder of the many dangers that await Chinese tech firms that list overseas.

The court order made global headlines, and created an embarrassment for a company that tries to portray itself as a Chinese innovator equivalent to global tech giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). The setback drew a wide range of commentary from tech executives, who had very different things to say on the matter. The most thoughtful post came from Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL (HKEx: 1070; Shenzhen: 000100), who talked about the similar challenges his company faced when it embarked on its own global expansion for its core TV and cellphone businesses about a decade ago. 

Meantime, Xu Xinquan, a senior vice president at e-commerce giant JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), brushed off the importance of patents in general, saying they were a minor obstacle that could be easily purchased. Of course that's easy to say for a website operator like JD, which is much less dependent on such patented technology than gadget makers like Xiaomi.

Other interesting remarks came from Huawei executive Ma Bing, who commented on the growing number of "hooligans" that illegally copy other companies' intellectual property. To understand that comment, one has to realise that Huawei prides itself on spending billions of dollars each year on R&D, and has registered thousands of patents. It's also just slightly jealous of Xiaomi's rapid success, which contrasts with its own much slower progress to develop its smartphone business.