Judge rejects HTC smartphone import ban in US

A US judge will not accept Apple’s request to impose an import ban on HTC smartphones. The Cupertino company had requested this because it believes that Taiwanese HTC infringes its patents.

Apple had to request a quick import ban requested with the American International Trade Commission, because HTC would still be guilty of patent infringement, after this had already been proven by a judge. As a result, Apple believed it could claim a so-called emergency import ban, which would limit the sale of the One X, among other things. However, the judge, affiliated with the ITC, did not agree. This allows HTC to continue importing devices into the United States for the time being.

In December, an American judge already ordered an import and sales ban for patent infringement, but HTC would, Apple claims, have continued to infringe the patent in question. HTC itself said that before the ban would come into effect, the infringing element would have been removed from its Android software. Because the company promised customs that it would no longer violate the Apple patent in question, the imported smartphones could still be imported into the United States. The ban would normally have come into effect in April.

The fact that the judge does not pronounce an immediate import ban does not mean that HTC has been exonerated. An investigation is still underway in which the judge is looking at whether the Taiwanese manufacturer has actually stopped infringing on the patent, which is number 5,946,647 wears. This patent describes a technique to perform an action on a data structure generated by a computer.