Obama Administration Overrules iPhone Trade Ban 397
Back in June, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued an import ban on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G due to patent violations. Now, the White House has exercised its privilege to overrule the ban. In his letter to the ITC (PDF), Ambassador Michael Froman said 'he was not making a decision about the merits of Samsung's case, or its right to seek compensation. Rather, he emphasized that because the patent in question was now a widely held technology standard, banning the products in question would be too disruptive to consumers and the economy.' This is the first time an ITC decision has been overruled since 1987.
Strangely... (Score:4, Insightful)
The same was not done for Samsung when their products were banned over flimsier design patents
By rights, overturning should be temporary (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Strangely... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strangely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Strangely, design patents are not standard-essential, so the two incidents are not directly comparable.
Nice try though.
Curiouser and curiouser (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, he emphasized that because the patent in question was now a widely held technology standard, banning the products in question would be too disruptive to consumers and the economy
That argument could be used to sooooo many other patent litigations, and somehow never is, except when the affected part is a big American company.
Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Money buys a lot.
Double standards if nothing else.
Re:You know (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Strangely... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if Apple made its products in California, it wouldn't have to import them from its Chinese suppliers.
Re:Strangely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Senator Smoot? Representative Hawley? Is that you?
Note that the last time we tried this particular technique to bring jobs back to the US, we got what is colloquially known as the "Great Depression".
Re:You know (Score:5, Insightful)
It also probably doesn't hurt that Apple is a US based corporation, while Samsung is Korean. I'd bet if this was a Samsung vs Asus or Sony dispute, the Obama administration would not have stepped in.
Re:Suddenly (Score:2, Insightful)
Because it's Apple who won this move, patents are important to the Slashdot crowd. Funny that.
Most of us would be happy if patents were to go away.
What we object to is the US President telling US courts that he's going to ignore the law for Apple, but not for everyone else. Either the law applies to everyone, or it should be repealed, not just ignored by executive fiat.
Re:Strangely... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the President's job to put US interests above all others.
But not above the rule of law.
Re:You know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Curiouser and curiouser (Score:3, Insightful)
And only recently have big corporations started to use standards-essential patents and refused to pay the license fee.
It used to be that big corporation only stole small company patents. Now they steal big corporations patents too - when those big corporations gets angry and wants to get payed for their patents - the abusers run to the government and hide behind their tailcoat
Re:You know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You know (Score:3, Insightful)
People will rue the day that they allowed the Executive Branch to so widely ignore laws on immigration, health care, spending and now finding of a duly authorized organization.
Re:You missed one (Score:3, Insightful)
The one that doesn't pay any corporation tax or tax on its vast cash stockpiles? I think you will find that for Apple Inc. is not a US company, at least as far as taxation goes.
Re:You know (Score:3, Insightful)
Now extend this attitude to every side of every issue and you'll understand why politics is so dysfunctional.
Also, it is a sad testament to our culture that you can publicly confess that you'll stick to your initital prejudice no matter what facts or logic you might encounter, and apparently see that as a source of pride rather than a serious cognitive flaw.
Re:Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Except you can't consider monster multi-nationals to belong to any country, once you realize where do they pay their taxes...