(Yicai Global) Feb. 15 -- US tech company Dareltech will square off with Beijing-based handset giant Xiaomi and Shenzhen-headquartered drone maker DJI Technology in a Manhattan court in the next few months seeking damages for asserted infringements of its patented self-developed selfie stick technology. 

Dareltech's pretrial meeting with Xiaomi was held on Feb. 8 and their pretrial hearing will be held in US court on April 12, according to Dareltech's Weibo account.

Bethesda, Maryland-headquartered Dareltech will attend a settlement conference with DJI on May 8, the plaintiff posted on its microblogging Weibo account on Feb. 13. 

The case will be heard by the influential US federal court for the Southern District of New York. Xie Tiandi, the director of public relations at DJI, is not familiar with Dareltech but speculated it might be an NPE, which is a non-practicing entity which owns patents but does not produce the products they protect, Securities Daily reported today, citing industry insiders.

The plaintiffs claim they are not an NPE in the court filings, however, which state, "Neither Dareltech nor the Inventors have ever sought to litigate or otherwise enforce a patent purchased from an outside third party. The patented inventions that Dareltech seeks to enforce in this case are the fruits of Dareltech's individual Inventors, Jinrong Yang and Ramzi Khalil Maalouf."

Patent disputes with such institutions usually have limited impact on a company, however.

Many methods to defend against patent infringement claims are available, You Yunting, a prominent intellectual property lawyer with DeBund Law Offices in Shanghai, told the financial newspaper. You had not heard of Dareltech but also surmised it might be an NPE, per the Securities Times Report. 

NPEs come in three main types: scientific research, speculative and defensive NPEs.

Scientific research NPEs, such as universities and research laboratories, usually conduct basic research, and develop patents they license to producers. Speculative NPEs are individuals with patents pending and small groups that use purchased patents against products which have proven successful. 

The activities of such institutions are often scorned by true operators, who believe they extort much more than the actual value a patent adds to a product, and that they hinder innovation. They cannot assert counterclaims since they do not manufacture products. Some call them patent trolls.

Defensive NPEs, like speculative ones, also purchase patents, but they are essentially there to counter speculative NPEs. Such companies similarly do not produce, and thus speculative NPEs cannot file infringement suits or requests for cross-licensing to share in the fruits of an invention, either.

These types of lawsuits are very common, You said. Large companies have more products and great intellectual property risks, but patent problems are usually easy to resolve as long as they do not involve core technology, he added. 

Editors: Emmi Laine, Ben Armour