The legal battle between Samsung and Apple took an unexpected turn yesterday when ITC (International Trade Commission) of the USA decided that certain iDevices of the company Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), must be removed for sale because it infringes a patent of Samsung. Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system is the name of that patent, Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), admitted that it violates the Samsung patent, but says that it must be allowed to license it on reasonable terms, because we are talking about FRAND patents, and the 2.4% of the value of each iDevice sold is too much for Americans.
Under the modified constructions, the Commission has determined that Samsung has proven that the accused iPhone 4 (AT&T models); iPhone 3GS (AT&T models); iPhone 3 (AT&T models); iPad 3G (AT&T models); and iPad 2 3G (AT&T models) infringe the asserted claims of the '348 patent. The Commission has further determined that the properly constructed claims have not been proven by Apple to be invalid and that Samsung has proven that a domestic industry exists in the United States with respect to the '348 patent. The Commission has determined that Apple failed to prove an affirmative defense based on Samsung's FRAND declarations.
iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPad 3G si iPad 2 3G are the iDevices that fall under the sales ban decision, most of them being already unavailable in Apple stores. The decision given today does not come into effect immediately, it can be canceled by the White House within 60 days, or by an appeal made by the Apple company. If neither of these two things happen, then they will be removed from sale until Apple and Samsung find a common point to establish some licensing terms.
We are disappointed that the Commission has overturned an earlier ruling and we plan to appeal. Today's decision has no impact on the availability of Apple products in the United States. Samsung is using a strategy which has been rejected by courts and regulators around the world. They've admitted that it's against the interests of consumers in Europe and elsewhere, yet here in the United States Samsung continues to try to block the sale of Apple products by using patents they agreed to license to anyone for a reasonable fee.
In front of the decision, those from Apple announced that they will appeal and that it does not have any impact on the sale of terminals in the USA anyway. Moreover, the company's spokesperson claims that Samsung's strategy has already been rejected by the courts of several countries around the world, including in Europe where the Koreans would have admitted that they ran their business in a manner that contravenes consumer interests.
No matter what the situation will be, after 2 months Apple was going to remove almost all the respective terminals from sale, with the exception of the iPhone 4, which would probably have been on the market for another year.
