After scoring an apparent victory against Apple in June regarding the outcome of a patent dispute centering around 3G technologies which found Apple in violation of Samsung’s patents and led to the sales ban declaration by the International Trade Commission for select products in the US, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has vetoed the sales ban handed down in June according to the Wall Street Journal, citing worries that other patent holders could gain “undue leverage” against every other company involved in the ongoing litigation cycle regarding wireless industry patents, with Apple and Samsung at the focus of the court battles.
This turns the apparent victory for Samsung against Apple into another loss for the Korean conglomerate, though all is not lost as Froman also stated that Samsung was still free to pursue Apple through the courts regarding the ongoing patent disputes between both companies, with no apparent solution in sight.
In June, the ITC initially found in favor of Samsung regarding a 3G patent dispute, which would have meant that Apple’s GSM iPhone 3GS, GSM iPhone 4, and 3G versions of the original iPad and iPad 2 would have been banned from sale in the country even though three of the four devices are discontinued. The ban would have affected sales of the GSM iPhone from AT&T and online resellers in the US which held GSM iPhone 4 inventory.
Update: Samsung has released the following statement on the decision.
We are disappointed that the U.S. Trade Representative has decided to set aside the exclusion order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC’s decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license.
The Office of the Trade Representative has also released the memo pertaining to the veto decision in PDF format.
