The International Trade Commission has found that some of Apple’s devices infringe on Samsung patents, and has banned the import of these devices into the US, the devices in question are the Apple iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 3G.
This is a major win for Samsung in the US, and may now give them some bargaining power against Apple and the ongoing court case, Apple were awarded damages of $1 billion from Samsung in a case last year, the case is still ongoing and will be heard later this year.
Apple can now appeal the ruling by the ITC, and before the ban comes into place it will have to go before President Obama, he can actually overturn the ruling, although this rarely happens.
Apple now has 60 days to either appeal the ruling, or to come to some sort of agreement with Samsung, if they don’t then sales of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G will be banned in the US.
Apple will be announcing its new devices at their World Wide Developer Conference later this month, we are expecting a new iPhone 5S and a new iPad, we suspect that Apple will decide to replace the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 3G, with last years models and launch their new models as their flagship devices.
Source Bloomberg