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Obama Administration Vetoes Partial Ban on Apple Products Saturday August 3, 2013 1:20 pm PDT by James Cull The Obama administration has vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products which was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission). The ban, which applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, and the 3G models of the iPad and the iPad 2, was granted after the USITC found that the aforementioned products infringed on a Samsung patent, specifically Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system." Today, in a letter to Irving A. Williamson, the Chairman of the USITC, the United States Trade Representative Michael B. G. Froman declared the following: After extensive consultations with the agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee and the Trade Policy Review Group [...] I have decided to disapprove the USITC’s determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order in this investigation. The letter further went on to note that the Obama administration was "committed to promoting innovation and economic progress, including through providing adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights". The Verge has noted that this is the first time since 1987 that the President of the United States has interfered with a decision from the ITC. This comes after the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) recently criticised this sort of use of sales bans (rather than monetary compensation) as a means of executing patent infringement – as it in effect harms rival products and companies and does not promote a competitive trading environment. CNet had previously cited experts who believed it was unlikely for the administration to step in on this case. Just last week, Verizon attorney Randal Milch published an open letter calling for presidential intervention in this case to veto the ban. The ban would have otherwise gone into effect on August 5th, 2013.
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Samsung Fails to Win Presidential Veto of Potential U.S. Import Ban in Apple Patent Case Tuesday October 8, 2013 8:05 am PDT by Eric Slivka Samsung has failed to win a presidential veto overturning a looming import ban on several of its older mobile devices, reports Bloomberg. The ban is based on a verdict in a U.S. International Trade Commission case in which the company was ruled to have infringed upon patents held by Apple. “After carefully weighing policy considerations, including the impact on consumers and competition, advice from agencies, and information from interested parties, I have decided to allow” the import ban to proceed, Obama’s designee, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, said in a statement today. The Office of the United States Trade Representative last month vetoed a similar ban that had been issued against Apple over Samsung patents. That order was the first such veto since 1987 and came amid increasing calls for less reliance on the threat of barring product imports as part of patent litigation strategies. In particular, Samsung's wielding of "standards essential" patents covering basic functions of the device necessary for its operation was seen as overly aggressive when such patents are required to be licensed under reasonable terms. Samsung had argued that its ban should be overturned on grounds similar to those cited in the Apple ban veto, but Froman disagreed, noting that Samsung had already released several devices with approved workarounds for the features that had been ruled to be infringing upon Apple's patents. Samsung may still seek a delay in the import ban, but that will require a full review of the case on legal ground by a U.S. appeals court.
