Recently there were speculations that mobile phones supporting multiple SIM cards may be banned in India. Actually, few days ago, a Chennai based 36 years old engineer – Somasundaram Ram Kumar filed a petition at the Madras high court claiming that he owns patent (No.214388) for plurality of SIM cards in a single mobile handset and the various leading mobile phone manufacturers (including Samsung & Spice) is infringing his copy rights.
After receiving complaints from Ram Kumar, the Madras High court immediately restrained all mobile companies importing or producing dual SIM phones to stop its import/production/sale with immediate effect until and unless the patent holder for duality of SIM – Ram Kumar doesn’t gets his rights. Earlier Ram Kumar claimed a sum of Rs. 5 out of each dual SIM phone that was produced or sold in the country. Ram Kumar adds that, after not getting any positive reply from all these multi SIM based mobile manufacturers he was bound to take legal action against such manufacturers infringing the copy rights.
Presently, the customs have stopped clearing imports of any dual/multiple SIM phones into the country and also the sale of such phones have been halted, but the mobile sellers and manufacturers are yet to come up with any resolution and compromise with Ram Kumar (who is said to be holding its patents). As such, at the moment, there is no chance of getting a multiple SIM phone until the problem is sorted out.
Hope, everything goes fine and there would be settlements soon, so that Indian mobile users can continue enjoying the advantage of dual SIM phones.
(Image Credits: Cellphones.Ca)