USITC orders import ban against Samsung in final ruling

The US International Trade Commission’s final ruling on Apple’s July 2011-dated complaint against Samsung has dealt a severe blow to the latter’s aspirations, according to Foss Patents.

Cupertino-based Apple reportedly managed to secure an import ban against Samsung after the body found the latter to have infringed on two patents. Late by a week, the infringed patents include a software interface patent (also referred to as the “Steve Jobs patent”) and a hardware patent for detecting when a headset is connected – audio I/O headset plug and plug detection circuitry.

Trouble ahead?

To arrive to its latest decision, the USITC reportedly conducted a detailed review of two preliminary rulings by Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Thomas B. Pender.

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As it stands now, the commission has ordered an import ban that will come into effect after the 60-day Presidential review period.

Interestingly, in his preliminary ruling, Judge Pender had found Samsung guilty of violating two other Apple patents – a design patent and a translucent images patent. USITC, though, disagreed with that bit.

The South Korean giant, it seems, has already worked around its infringing technologies, but the outcome remains to be seen. Florian Mueller of Foss Patents observes: “Samsung has sold at least some unknown quantities of the designaround products it presented to the ITC, but it’s not known how many and how successfully. But it remains to be seen whether Samsung can comply with today’s limited exclusion order in ways that don’t make its Android-based smartphones and tablet computers less attractive.”