In early August, the U.S. International Trade commission ruled that Samsung infringed upon patents 7,479,949 and 7,912,501. The former relates to multi-touch detection on touch screen displays, and the latter applies to the phone detecting when a headphone / headset is plugged into the jack. Samsung argued that the ban should be overturned but failed to convince the administration. In reference to the import ban, U.S. Trade representative Michael Froman stated,
After carefully weighing policy considerations, including the impact on consumers and competition, advice from agencies, and information from interested parties, I have decided to allow
The banned devices are Samsung’s Galaxy S, S II, and Ace models. In Q2 2013, those models represented ~2M of Samsung’s 52M smartphone unit shipments globally. As the import ban only applies to the U.S. market, the impact will likely be negligible as these models are obsolete in the American Market.
Standard-essential patents are generally licensed according to FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) or RAND in the U.S. We believe the administration’s stances on the two Apple/Samsung import ban cases highlight the value of differentiating feature patents. We believe Apple has considerable strength in design/feature patents related to hardware, software, and OS.