The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a preliminary ruling yesterday regarding Motorola's October 2010 complaint against Apple. Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender reviewed the four patents Motorola claimed were being infringed and found that Apple was only infringing on one (U.S. Patent No. 6,246,697). However, as Motorola lawyers like to point out, "it only takes one bullet to kill."
According to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, "both parties will appeal the parts of the ruling that are unfavorable to them." Mueller goes on to state that although it seems unlikely at this point, if this preliminary determination continues on to become a final ruling, it could result in an ITC enforced import ban against Apple, which "could be enough to prevent Apple from importing any iPhones and 3G-capable iPads into the United States."
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An important component to be clarified is if this ruling could apply to new Apple products, such as the iPhone 4S, that use a Qualcomm baseband chip. Cupertino may have a separate defense for those products that could exclude them from the ruling, and it is not clear if the Qualcomm chips can even be included by Motorola in the patent coverage. Motorola has not been able to get the courts to view the Qualcomm chip as part of the patent yet, despite several attempts.
Which is part of the reason why Apple brought an antitrust lawsuit against Motorola in February specifically regarding potential claims that Motorola might make against the iPhone 4S. Apple is claiming to be a third-party beneficiary to a license agreement between Qualcomm and Motorola, and is therefore protected against any litigation. On Monday, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California set a date of July 5 to determine if this lawsuit by Cupertino can proceed, or if it will be dismissed.
Bloomberg reports that Apple stung Samsung in court yesterday, and Samsung is going to have to write some checks. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal ruled in San Jose, California that Samsung violated court orders by failing to produce documents in their patent-infringement case with Apple.
Samsung had been ordered by the court to produce documents mentioning Apple features and designs, and so far hadn't given them up. Judge Grewal noted that there was some burden on Samsung to produce the documents in time, citing the "compressed case schedule and the numerous claims at issue," however he finally sided with Apple and ruled that the burden "does not negate Samsung’s obligation to comply with no fewer than two court orders specifying the production of documents that reference Apple’s products."
This is worse than library late fees by a lot.
The ruling against Samsung is going to be costly, as it includes some of the monetary sanctions Cupertino sought, but denied others. The ruling will not block the sale of any Samsung products, though, and the exact amount of the damages was not stated in the court filings. Regardless, odds are there will be several zeroes on the check, and that has got to sting in the middle of ongoing litigation.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column for MacLife.com. Follow him on Twitter, or subscribe to him on Facebook.
