By BRENT KENDALL and DON CLARKWASHINGTON—The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday ordered a ban on the import and sale of some Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +1.07% mobile devices after finding they infringed on two Apple Inc. AAPL -1.42% patents.The ruling could put pressure on the Obama administration, which only a few days earlier took the unusual step of vetoing an ITC ruling in favor of Samsung that would have barred the sale of some older Apple iPhones and iPads.
The administration will now have 60 days to decide whether to let the Samsung ban take effect. The impression of favoring domestic over foreign companies could raise trade tensions with Samsung’s home country of South Korea.
Samsung, while expressing disappointment with the ruling, said the order won’t hurt the availability of its products—an apparent reference to design changes made to remove infringing features from its smartphones and tablets.
“We have already taken measures to ensure that all of our products will continue to be available in the United States,” a Samsung spokesman said.
Specific Samsung products affected by the ITC order weren’t spelled out, though an earlier ruling by an agency judge pointed to older products that include the Galaxy S II smartphone and Galaxy 10.1 tablet. The order potentially could have an impact beyond older Samsung devices that Apple challenged at the time.
Friday’s ruling is another setback to Samsung in its global patent battles with Apple. Earlier Friday, Samsung appeared to have a difficult time during an appeals court hearing in another patent fight between the two companies.
Legal experts say the Apple and Samsung cases are based on different kinds of patents that would justify different conclusions by the administration.
The ITC found that Samsung infringed on parts of one Apple patent that covers elements of swiping a finger across the display of a device, a key feature of nearly all smartphones and tablets. It also cited parts of another patent related to headphone jacks.
The ITC decision isn’t a complete victory for Apple. The trade body rejected some claims made by Apple and absolved Samsung from infringing on patents associated with the most basic design of the iPhone.
In trying to persuade the ITC not to impose a ban, Samsung and partner Google Inc.—whose Android software is used by Samsung—warned of potential dire consequences for consumers and competition in the mobile market. Samsung, for example, argued that the ruling could cause widespread shortages of mobile phones, particularly among smaller U.S. carriers, “that would take many months to rectify.”
But Samsung also has been working on adapting products so they would no longer infringe on Apple patents, a process known as designing or working around an order.
The ITC said Friday that its ban doesn’t apply to the “adjudicated design around products” found not to infringe on claims of the two patents.
Apple and Samsung have been tangling in courts around the globe over patents since 2011. Tensions began building after Apple shook up the mobile-device market in 2007 with the iPhone and Samsung followed up with competing products.
The companies have wielded an array of patents against each other. For the most part, Apple has chosen to sue Samsung over patents covering the aesthetics or particular software features of its mobile devices. As part of its findings, the ITC overturned an administrative judge’s earlier finding that Samsung infringed on a potentially important Apple patent on the shape of the iPhone.
“We are disappointed that the ITC has issued an exclusion order based on two of Apple’s patents,” said Adam Yates, the Samsung spokesman. “However, Apple has been stopped from trying to use its overbroad design patents to achieve a monopoly on rectangles and rounded corners.”
Apple expressed satisfaction with the ruling. “With today’s decision, the ITC has joined courts around the world in Japan, Korea, Germany, Netherlands and California by standing up for innovation and rejecting Samsung’s blatant copying of Apple’s products,” a company spokeswoman said. “Protecting real innovation is what the patent system should be about.”
Last week’s veto by the Obama administration was the first of an ITC order in more than 25 years.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made the decision based on policy concerns about companies obtaining product bans based on patents that cover technology used in industrywide standards. A spokeswoman for Mr. Froman said the trade representative would “begin a thorough interagency review process.”
Friday’s case doesn’t raise the same issue about so-called standard-essential patents, but it still may raise political and trade sensitivities for the Obama administration. After last week’s veto, the South Korean government said it would be closely watching the ITC’s ruling Friday.
But Lyle Vander Schaaf, a specialist in ITC matters at the law firm Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, predicted the order against Samsung won’t be vetoed because of the different legal issues involved.
“So Samsung is going to be facing this exclusion order while Apple squeaked by,” he said.
In related news Friday, a federal appeals court pressed Samsung on whether the company should have been allowed to continue selling a range of phones and tablets after a California jury found the products infringed on other Apple patents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit didn’t clearly signal which way it intended to rule, but the three-judge panel that heard arguments by the two companies questioned portions of a trial judge’s ruling last December that refused to ban 26 Samsung products. – The Wall Street Journal
In that earlier ruling, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif. decided that an injunction against the Samsung products wasn’t appropriate. – Yahoo News/ The Wall Street Journal
