Kevin Bostic
A final ruling in one of Apple's suits against Samsung will have to wait until August of this year, as a judge for the International Trade Commission on Wednesday scheduled a final ruling for the first of that month.
Florian Mueller's Foss Patents reported Wednesday that Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender entered a scheduling order setting Aug. 1, 2013, as a target final decision date. Pender will have to make a remand initial determination on or before April 1.
The ruling will concern Pender's October decision that found Samsung in violation of three Apple utility patents and one design patent. Pender recommended that the ITC institute a U.S. import ban on certain Samsung products due to their infringement of Apple patents on multitouch, providing translucent images on a display, headphone plug detection circuitry, and the design of the original iPhone.
The ITC in January sent two of the four asserted patents — audio jack detection and translucent image display — back to Pender for reconsideration.
Should Pender eventually rule in Apple's favor, Mueller notes, import bans on infringing Galaxy products are not certain. Samsung has already designed workarounds for several of the alleged violations, though it remains unclear the extent to which such alterations will sway the court.
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8 Comments
A final ruling in one of Apple's suits against Samsung will have to wait until August of this year, as a judge for the International Trade Commission on Wednesday scheduled a final ruling for the first of that month.
The ITC is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The FTC and DOJ are both pushing the idea of injunctions being a last resort, used only if a licensee fails to make a good faith offer.
On the other hand, the ITC exists explicitly to stop infringing products from entering the US, and their main enforcement power is import bans. (They can't levy fines or anything else.)
If the workaround no longer infringes, the product won't be banned.
The last really major ITC ban related to phones was back in 2007. Qualcomm was found to infringe Broadcom patents, so the ITC banned imports of all CDMA phones with the infringing Qualcomm chipset until a royalty was paid to Broadcom.
Qualcomm refused to pay at first. Unfortunately, this meant that the supply of CDMA phones would quickly run out. Verizon ended up paying Broadcom a $6 per device royalty all on their own, just to get the devices unbanned and imported.
Apple had better get massively increased compensation for this extra time.
Apple had better get massively increased compensation for this extra time.
This is a different case than the $1B one in Fed court. The ITC can't order money damages. Their sole cure is a ban on imports and or/sales of currently available stock already on US soil.
This is a different case than the $1B one in Fed court. The ITC can't order money damages. Their sole cure is a ban on imports and or/sales of currently available stock already on US soil.
I know. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be compensated. There are plenty of suits for which they deserve damages.
Just let this be truly final, whatever the outcome.