There have been rumors for over a decade that Xiaomi was working to enter the U.S. market that have never materialized. Xiaomi is the third placed smartphone maker in the world. That’s amazing without a footprint in the U.S.

According to a report by The Elec today, LG Electronics has transferred 59 US codec standard patents to Xiaomi. Xiaomi can now reduce the risk of related patent disputes by acquiring these patents.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the 8th, LG Electronics transferred 59 U.S. video codec standard patents to Xiaomi Mobile Software in January. Codec patents are technologies for compressing and restoring video. They are used to compress file sizes and restore the original video to play video content on smartphone operating systems and TVs.

Xiaomi has fewer standard patents than its competitors such as Samsung Electronics, Apple, and Huawei. Nevertheless, Xiaomi ranked third in smartphone shipments last year (168.5 million units, market research firm IDC). Xiaomi can reduce the risk of patent disputes through the standard patents acquired from LG Electronics. It can also receive long-term licensing fees from the relevant patent pool.

All of the standard patents acquired by Xiaomi from LG Electronics were applied for (submitted) in the early 2020s. Of the 59, 12 have not yet been registered. A patent industry insider commented, “Since registered patents can be exercised for 20 years after application, Xiaomi has secured ‘hot’ patents with a lot of time left for use.” The scope of rights for technologies that are likely to be registered as standard patents can be adjusted by examining the consistency of standard documents.

Mi TV Set-Top Boxes are available on platforms like Amazon. Whether the patents are to protect their set-top box and TV businesses first and then extend them to smartphones and tablets is unknown at this time.