Samsung has been waiting for quite a while to see a ban imposed on some of Apple’s products in the US, as the South Korean company believes that the Cupertino-based tech giant has violated its copyrights. However, it appears that luck has not ran out on Apple yet, as President of United States Barack Obama and his administration vetoed the potential ban on 3G-enabled iPad 2 models and iPhone 4 in the country.
The US Government revealed this news through a notice, while the official verdict came from trade representative of the US, Michael Froman. Below is an excerpt from the official notice:
“In addition, on January 8, 2013, the Department of Justice and United States Patent and Trademark Office issued an important Policy Statement entitled “Policy Statement on Remedies for Standard-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary FRAND Commitments” (“Policy Statement”).2 The Policy Statement makes clear that standards, and particularly voluntary consensus standards set by standards developing organizations (“SDO”), have incorporated important technical advances that are fundamental to the interoperability of many of the products on which consumers have come to rely, including the types of devices that are the subject of the Commission’s determination. The Policy Statement expresses substantial concerns, which I strongly share, about the potential harms that can result from owners of standardsessential patents (“SEPs”) who have made a voluntary commitment to offer to license SEPs on terms that are fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (“FRAND”), gaining undue leverage and engaging in “patent holdup”, i.e., asserting the patent to exclude an implementer of the standard from a market to obtain a higher price for use of the patent than would have been possible before the standard was set, when alternative technologies could have been chosen. At the same time, technology implementers also can cause potential harm by, for example, engaging in “reverse holdup” (“holdout”), e. g., by constructive refusal to negotiate a FRAND license with the SEP owner or refusal to pay what has been determined to be a FRAND royalty.”
This was the first of its kind President’s block against an ITC ban since 1987, when Reagan was in White House. If the US Government would not have vetoed this ban then, Apple, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 2, iPad 3G and original 3G-enabled iPad might have suffered the consequences. But mostly it would have hurt iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 models of Apple, as late Steve Jobs company is still selling these products in the US.
Therefore, in response to this decision, Samsung issued the following statement:
“We are disappointed that the U.S. Trade Representative has decided to set aside the exclusion order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC’s decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license.”
Source: 9to5Google
Photo: TheGuardian
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