Apple ruling to be reviewed

By Kim Yoo-chul

ITC building in Washington

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decided Tuesday (KST) to review an earlier decision that Apple didn’t infringe on four patents held by Samsung in its mobile devices.

A preliminary ruling in September by an ITC administrative judge found that Apple hadn’t violated any of the four patents at issue. Two of them were considered ``standards essential,’’ meaning they should be licensed out to competitors.

``The ITC has determined to review the initial determination issued by the presiding administrative law judge on Sept. 14, 2012. The commission requests certain briefing from the parties on the issues under review. The commission also requests briefing from the parties and the public on the issues of remedy, the public interest and bonding,’’ the commission said.

It seems uncertain whether the USITC will rule differently from September as a complete overturn through a re-evaluation isn’t common, said patent experts.

``Receiving a judgment at the USITC means a lot in itself and has a big impact,’’ said an unnamed Samsung official, who is directly involved in the Samsung-Apple issue.

``The ITC will make its final decision in January next year and if Apple is found to have violated Samsung-owned patents, Samsung could declare its first victory in Apple’s home-turf,’’ said the Samsung official.

In their ongoing patents battle, the U.S. is the only country that Samsung has failed to win in. In the United Kingdom, Apple was ordered to issue a statement to major British newspapers that Samsung didn’t copy its designs. Also, courts in other European countries, and Australia and Japan didn’t issue one-sided rulings.

In August, Samsung was fined $1.05 billion by a U.S. jury in California for violating Apple patents. The Korean company is seeking a new trial alleging that the jury foreman Velvin Hogan was guilty of misconduct.

The two companies will meet on Dec. 6 in California for a hearing before Judge Lucy Koh, who has confirmed she will look into the allegations of misconduct. Patent experts have said that Koh will probably order Samsung to pay lower damages.

Florian Mueller of FossPatents said FRAND, which stands for fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory, issues will be the key for the ITC’s re-evaluation.

``Clearly, U.S. Patent No. 7,706,348 on an `apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system’ is going to be the most important patent at this stage. This patent is probably Samsung’s best shot at the review stage,’’ Mueller wrote on his blog.

Some of the re-evaluation will be concerned with the classification of standards essential patents and how companies should be allowed to charge for the use of them. Samsung is under investigation by anti-trust authorities in Europe and South Korea for possible patent abuses mostly related to FRAND.