Apple fights back, import ban on Samsung products looming

The smartphone war is set to go on as the U. S. trade council has imposed bans on imports of Samsung’s old products. The U. S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Friday ruled that the biggest smartphone manufacturer Samsung infringes on two of its rival, Apple patents which are for detection of headphone jacks and operation touchscreens.

Although no device was mentioned in the ruling, it is expected that devices like the Samsung Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are among the devices that will be affected. According to reports, only 3 of the 26 Samsung products affected in 2011 are still in the market.

This is coming about a week after U. S. President Barack Obama’s administration vetoed a ruling that was in favour of Samsung to ban the imports of iPhone 4s and some variant of iPad 2. U. S. claimed such a ban could have a negative effect on its economy.

“The ITC has joined courts around the world in Japan, Korea, Germany, Netherlands, and Carlifornia by standing up for innovation and rejecting Samsung’s blatant copying of Apple’s products,” Apple’s spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said after the ruling.

However, out of the six patents that Apple claimed that Samsung had violated, only 2 were held by the jury and Samsung was absolved of the other four. As expected, Samsung was disappointed with the ruling.

“We are disappointed that the ITC has issued an exclusion order based on two of Apple’s patents. However, Apple has been stopped from trying to use its overbroad design patents to achieve a monopoly on rectangles and rounded corners,” Adam Yates, Samsung spokesman said in a statement.

After the veto from U. S. government on Samsung’s win in court, South Korean government has noted that it will follow this judgment closely. It is yet unclear what Barack Obama will do concerning this latest ruling which has somehow put him in a difficult corner.

Analysts have come out to claim that Obama will likely not veto this ruling because it’s a different kind of violation. They claim that Apple’s violation on Samsung’s patent was a violation of an essential patent. This means Apple’s products will not meet industry standard if they fail to use the patent.

They claimed that Samsung’s violation is a violation of a non-essential patent which is geared toward commercial purposes and not to necessarily meet industry standards.

Google, who owns the Android Operating System – on which Samsung’s phones run on – has noted before the ruling that ban could affect the market negatively. “The owner of a trivial patent has no reasonable expectation of more than trivial compensation,” Google said.

Personally, I have a gut feeling that Obama will not veto this ruling but we time will tell. The biggest worry for people concerned is not the import ban on the old products, but the patent will not be usable in future products if this ruling is upheld. Even Apple wants to go after Samsung’s newer products if this case can be won.

The case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 13-1129.

Posted in Apple, Samsung