U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Declines to Ban iPhone Imports

cageymaru

cageymaru

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It seems that Apple has won another round of the ongoing Qualcomm vs Apple dispute about alleged patent infringement. A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge refused to ban Apple iPhone products from being sold in the U.S. even though he ruled that they infringed on one of Qualcomm's patents related to power management technology. "Thomas Pender, an administrative law judge at the ITC, said that "public interest factors" weighed against granting Qualcomm's request for a ban." Other judges will review the determination and Qualcomm has another pending patent case against Apple before the ITC.

In a statement, Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said the company was pleased the judge did find patent infringement, but "it makes no sense to then allow infringement to continue by denying an import ban. "That goes against the ITC mandate to protect American innovators by blocking the import of infringing products," Rosenberg said. “There are many ways Apple could stop infringing our technology without affecting the public interest."
 
cageymaru said:
“There are many ways Apple could stop infringing our technology without affecting the public interest."
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He's not wrong. The ban is meant to put pressure on the offending party to agree to license the infringing tech or remove it. I assume Qualcomm is offering a royalty.

Without a ban, it allows Apple to continue to sell the product (dragging it out) and just assume the fine will be less than what they'd pay in royalties. Or drag it out long enough that their return on access to that capital is higher than paying.
 
Qualcomm is possibly the only company more greedy than Apple. They're most of the reason we don't have more advanced wireless tech right now.
 
So the "statutory public interest factors" that are mentioned in the written finding appear to refer to 19 U.S.C. 1337(d)(1) (full text here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1337). Looks like the ITC can find that there is infringement but refuse an import ban request if it would have a negative impact on competition in the affected market space. IANAAL nor a legal scholar and thus could be very wrong.
 
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"public interest factors" weighed against granting Qualcomm's request for a ban
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LOL!

So this really sends a very clear message, everyone needs to pirate every movie, song, game, and tv show out there, if enough people do it, then the "public interest factors" can't make it illegal and ban it.
 
Any bets as to which phone Pender or the women in his family use and want the latest iteration of?
 
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