Patent victory for Samsung as Apple's older iPhones and iPads face US ban

Samsung has just won a major patent battle against rival Apple and to add insult to injury its on Apple’s home-turf. The US International Trade Commission, which is an independent federal agency issued a notice on its website announcing the ban on some version of Apple’s prize iPhone and iPad. You can check out the notice here.

The list includes 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). While these are the older models of the iPhone, iPhone 3 and iPhone 3GS are no longer sold in the US, the iPhone 4 is still being sold in the US as is the iPad 2 with 3G. iPads with WiFi only versions are not affected by the ruling.

The ruling which calls for a import, sales and distribution ban comes into force in 60 days. The decision can only be reviewed and overturned by the President, and even that rarely takes place. Apple can continue selling the devices during the 60-day review period.

In its order, the US trade body wrote :

The Commission has determined that the appropriate remedy is a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order prohibiting Apple from importing into the United States or selling or distributing within the United States wireless communication devices, portable music and data processing devices, and tablet computers that infringe claims 75-76 and 82-84 of the ‘348 patent.

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 specific patent , deals with “apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system”

As this post on the blog FossPatents , points that newer models of iPhones and iPads coming with Qualcomm baseband chips (starting with the iPhone 4S) are definitely not affected, limiting the potential impact of this decision on Apple’s revenues - basically, Apple would have to make the iPhone 4S its entry-level iPhone model and discontinue US sales of older iPhones.

Samsung had filed this complain in 2011 June over five patents. Apple had insisted that its use of these patents came under fair and reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND) but its argument clearly failed to hold with the trade body.