By Serena Christiansson, Hague Development and Promotion Section, Hague Registry, WIPO
In this story, we take you on a journey to China – the newest member of the Hague System – to find out more about Xiaomi Corporation's designs and their plans to leverage WIPO's international design system later this year.
Founded in Beijing in 2010, Xiaomi designs and manufactures consumer electronics and related software, home appliances and household items. The 'mi' in Xiaomi stands for "Mobile Internet", so it is perhaps no surprise that smartphones are its core business. Today, Xiaomi is one of the world's biggest sellers of smartphones. Ranking 338th, it's the youngest company on the Fortune Global 500.
Xiaomi's vision is to "Make friends with users and be the coolest company in the users' hearts". To this end, they create a range of products that provide customers with high-quality user experience at affordable prices, letting everyone enjoy a better life through innovative technology.
Award-winning designs
Xiaomi Corporation has always valued the importance of design and has won numerous international design awards including the IDEA Gold Award, iF Gold Award, Good Design Best 100 and Red Dot: Best of the Best. In 2017 alone, it received four prestigious global industrial design awards.
MIUI – from imagination to reality
Xiaomi's first product, released in August 2010, was MIUI, an android ROM (Read only Memory) – the operating system that runs a device – developed for use in smartphones. And, just one year later, Xiaomi launched its first smartphone – the Mi 1.
Appreciating the critical importance of unique design in making a product truly attractive, Xiaomi successfully integrated new features into MIUI, such as custom themes and fonts – novel traits in those early days. The initial release was a huge market success and, through continuous improvement and investment, it has consistently come up to customer expectations. Today, it has some 500 million active users.
MIUI is still the backbone of Xiaomi's smartphones today. MIUI 13 – the latest version – is currently making its way to user devices. New widgets, a one-handed mode, a redesigned control center, and new, unique animated wallpapers, are just some of the notable improvements.
Mi MIX – Xiaomi's android smartphone
Launched in 2016, Xiaomi's Mi MIX set the standard for the smartphone full-screen display era. For Xiaomi's designers, it provided a stage on which they could truly demonstrate their talents, using unique takes on color, material and craftsman-ship. They have continued to explore and enhance this full-screen design concept. Mi MIX 3 (2018) – with its 93.4% screen-to-body ratio – really pushes the limits of full-screen display. For added elegance and appeal, it features a colored ceramic rear – onyx black, sapphire blue, jade green – that curves gracefully on all four of its sides.
The Alpha version of Mi MIX is a futuristic, surround-display concept smartphone, designed to represent one possible form of the ultimate future smartphone. Its display extends from front to back, lighting up the whole phone and providing a truly futuristic feel.
Creating art in life
In collaboration with its ecosystem companies, Xiaomi has created numerous successful products – from control devices to smart home devices – all of which use its unique design concept:
- rational hardware design;
- intuitive product design; and
- simple, elegant and stylish ornamental design.
By following these basic principles, Xiaomi successfully avoids adding meaningless design features – added purely for decoration – and really connects with its customers.
Protecting Xiaomi's designs through the Hague System
With Xiaomi's products now reaching more than 100 countries and regions around the world, efficient intellectual property (IP) protection is essential. At the end of 2021, Xiaomi's portfolio contained some 3,000 designs registered in overseas countries. More than one third of them are protected through the Hague System.
As of May 5, 2022, companies and designers based in China will be able to seek international protection of their designs in as many of the 94 countries covered by the Hague System as desired, helping them expand into international markets.
Some larger Chinese enterprises like Xiaomi – with establishments in countries that are already members of the Hague System – have already been using WIPO's international design system. Access to the System will radically simplify procedures.
The Hague System will in future be our first choice for securing overseas design protection. Using the Hague System will be convenient and cost-effective for us. And, we won't have to use local attorneys as no action is required at individual national office levels. We look forward to filing more applications for protection in multiple countries in just one language.
Xiaomi
You can find out more about some of Xiaomi's designs in our Hague Express database.
More about the Hague System
WIPO's Hague System provides a unique international mechanism for securing and managing design rights simultaneously in multiple countries or regions through one application, in one language with one set of fees.
Find out more
- Hague System Digital Information Kit
- How the Hague System works
- Filing international applications and renewing international registrations
- Managing international registrations
Want to share your story?
If you would be interested in sharing your own Designs in Action story, illustrating how you've leveraged the Hague System to secure international design protection, we would love to hear from you! Contact Hague
(March 25, 2022)
