Ericsson seeks to ban import of Samsung products News
Ericsson seeks to ban import of Samsung products
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[JURIST] Swedish telecom company Ericsson [corporate website] filed a complaint [text] with the US International Trade Commission [official website] on Friday against Samsung [corporate website] seeking an import ban on Samsung’s Galaxy line of products. This came just three days after Ericsson filed suit [JURIST report] against Samsung in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas [official website] for patent infringement. Ericsson claims that Samsung violated 19 USC § 1337 [text], which prohibits the importation or sale in the US of products which infringe patents. Ericsson alleges that Samsung violated eleven of Ericsson’s patents that involve radio frequency receiver technology, wireless communication device design, user interface technology, modulation technology and standardized communication protocols, such as LTE or WiFi standards. The patents at issue are considered standard-essential [FOSS Patents report] and thus critical to Samsung’s devices. Ericsson further alleges that Samsung violated the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing practices Samsung had agreed to with its own standard-essential patents.

Samsung has been involved in numerous patent infringement lawsuits, especially with Apple [corporate website]. Earlier this month, a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ruled that Apple and Samsung may each pursue additional patent infringement claims against the other, allowing each company to add devices brought to market after the original lawsuit was filed in February. In October the Dutch Rechtbank’s-Gravenhage [official website] court ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple software patent. In the same month, a UK court also ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple design patent. In the same time frame Apple appealed [JURIST report] a Tokyo District Court ruling which dismissed the company’s claim that Samsung had infringed on its patents. At the beginning of October, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] reversed an injunction [JURIST report] against Samsung that prevented it from selling its Galaxy Nexus product. Earlier in August, Apple won a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] in the Northern District of California against Samsung involving other patent infringements.