“The first Android company Apple sued was HTC. An import ban against HTC’s Android-based products could be ordered before the end of the year, followed by a 60-day presidential review period,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“In mid-July, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) at the US International Trade Commission (ITC) found HTC in infringement of two Apple patents. The Commission (the six-member decision-making body at the top of the ITC) is now reviewing that determination with a December 6, 2011 target date for a final decision,” Mueller reports. “After an ALJ finds a violation, the ITC routinely encourages public interest statements on the possible impact of an import ban.”
Mueller reports, “While Google and T-Mobile submitted public interest statements that predicted doom for the U.S. job market and the ability of first responders to deal with emergencies, the staff at the ITC’s Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII) just dismissed any such concerns and supported Apple’s argument that there are alternative products running Android as well as other operating systems, including that HTC itself offers Windows Phone handsets.”
“Steve Jobs would have loved to read [the OUII’s statement],” Mueller writes. “The whole purpose of the OUII is to represent the public interest in those investigations. It’s neutral. In this case, it dismisses public interest concerns. The OUII doesn’t believe there’s an infringement of valid patents in this case, but if the Commission agrees with the ALJ and Apple, then the OUII believes that an import ban is perfectly appropriate and that the enforceability of intellectual property is an overarching public interest consideration.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Boom!
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