OnePlus One is banned in India, Cyanogen-Micromax deal to blame

Ready for your next episode of the high-tech soap opera that is the OnePlus-Cyanogen relationship?

Here’s the deal: yesterday, a New Delhi court banned OnePlus from selling its One smartphone in India, at the request of local manufacturer Micromax. The reason? Micromax has an exclusive deal with Cyanogen that prevents any other company from selling Cyanogen-powered devices in India, including OnePlus.

OnePlus, of course, has a global licensing deal with Cyanogen, but the Micromax agreement supersedes it.

The court allowed OnePlus to clear its existing stock of Cyanogen-running One’s. The phone is still available at the moment of this writing (invite required) on Amazon, OnePlus’ exclusive retail channel in India.

OnePlus is banned from shipping any devices running Cyanogen in India, but it can still ship the OnePlus One with different software onboard. However, there’s no official info on when could that happen. The company offered the following statement:

In accordance with a judgment passed by the Delhi High Court, we will no longer be producing the OnePlus One with CyanogenMod to be sold in India.

We are still fully committed to serving our users in the region and, in light of this decision, are working to find a solution that will allow us to continue operations as soon as possible.

We regret the inconvenience this causes to OnePlus fans in India who have patiently waited for the opportunity to purchase the One.

OnePlus is currently developing its own Android ROM, and has just launched a contest to pick its name. In the past, the Shenzhen-based company supported the development of various “community ROMs” for the OnePlus, in addition to the officially support Cyanogen. In China, the OnePlus One ships with Color OS, developed by sister company Oppo.

To recap, the OnePlus One launched in early December in India, but soon after it was revealed that Cyanogen had signed up Micromax as its exclusive partner in India. Following some confusing back and forth, it was announced that OnePlus One’s sold in India would not get any Cyanogen updates. OnePlus is accusing Cyanogen that it left it in the dark about its Micromax plans.

Micromax will launch its first Cyanogen smartphone, the Yu, tomorrow.

On a related note, another injunction against a high-profile Chinese company has been enforced last week, when a court banned Xiaomi from selling its phones in India, due to a patent spat with Ericsson. Xiaomi managed to obtain a partial lift of the injunction yesterday.

It remains to be seen if OnePlus will find a reprieve from its own legal problems.