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By Malcolm Owen
Friday, September 28, 2018 at 12:55 Pacific Time (3:55 pm ET)
The iPhone will not be subject to an import ban in the United States, a judge of the US International Trade Commission presiding over the dispute between Apple and Qualcomm, even though he probably violated one of the three Qualcomm patents at the center of the case.
In a first judgment that, for the most part, has essentially yielded to Apple, ITC judge Thomas Pender has ruled that the ban on imports of iPhones in the United States would be contrary to the interest public, Bloomberg reports. The full details of the judges' findings are not yet available, but will be released once both companies have written confidential information that they do not wish to make public.
Although an import ban is not feasible, the judge does not rule out any further action, as the judge said Apple had violated one of Qualcomm's three patents.
The ruling effectively prevents Qualcomm from exerting pressure on Apple, which could have forced Apple to agree to pay license fees, if only to continue to sell its devices in the big market.
Qualcomm said Apple was violating its patents on operator aggregation, graphics processing, and signal amplification in a complaint filed last year with ITC. In June, consumers fought the prospect of the ban by filing a petition against the ITC against Qualcomm, suggesting that a ban would boost anti-competitive behavior.
This is not the only activity of the ITC between the two companies, as a second Qualcomm complaint was also lodged with the Commission under similar claims. Qualcomm suffered a late blow in this case, with agency staff recommending that none of the remaining patent lawsuits be infringed by Apple, and that an import ban would negatively impact the cellular modem market in the United States. -United.
The ITC complaints are part of a long series of actions in the legal dispute between the two companies.
Earlier this year, Apple launched the first stone in a lawsuit against Qualcomm, claiming that it was abusing its "monopoly power" over the wireless modem industry to demand excessive royalties. Qualcomm also claimed nearly $ 1 billion in discounts promised for Apple's participation in a South Korean antitrust investigation.
Qualcomm filed a counter-attack three months later and has since filed several claims against Apple, including two ITC complaints and lawsuits in China. Apple has also started actions in China.
Qualcomm calls for the ban on iPhone models powered by Intel baseband chips, which, if performed, would only sell models with Qualcomm chips. No line of the iPhone XS does have a Qualcomm modem.
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