I was telling you the other day that Apple is going to ask for a ban on the import and sale of some Samsung products in the US, based on a lawsuit won last year, and now I tell you that the company's grievances have come true. According to the ITC, Samsung infringed a patent belonging to Steve Jobs, which describes a multitude of functions of multitouch touchscreens, but also a patent that covers a technology through which mobile terminals detect headphones or other accessories connected to them. Based on the ITC decision, several Samsung terminals will be banned for import into the US, with the company selling the devices in stock, then removing them from the offer.
Today the United States International Trade Commission (USITC, or just ITC) handed down its final ruling on Apple's July 2011 complaint against Samsung. An import ban has been ordered and will take effect at the end of the 60-day Presidential review period. An import ban has been ordered and will take effect at the end of the 60-day Presidential review period. Even though there may be expectations in South Korea that Samsung should benefit from a Presidential veto only because Apple just won one last Saturday, "me too" doesn't make sense here.
The decision given today by the ITC will be reviewed by a presidential commission, but the chances that Barack Obama will use his veto to save Samsung are very small. Although Obama canceled a similar decision against those from Apple, in that case Samsung was using FRAND patents to impose the ban, and here we are talking about patents that are not part of that category, so Apple has no obligation to license them to anyone in reasonable terms. This decision comes as a result of a process initiated in 2011, so the terminals removed from sale are no longer relevant in any way, so Samsung loses only in terms of image.
