| Cult of Mac

Why the Apple Watch might be banned from US import

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A judge ruled Apple infringed on AliveCor's ECG-related patents.
Apple Watch imports might be banned in an ongoing patent dispute. But that's unlikely.
Photo: Apple

A decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission to block Apple Watch imports reportedly received a go-ahead from the Biden administration.

That would be a devastating decision, except that the ITC’s ruling is based on Apple Watch violating patents owned by AliveCor, and the U.S. Patent Office has ruled those are invalid. AliveCor is appealing, though.

Apple v. Qualcomm: You win some, you lose some

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Qualcomm patents
The ITC sided with Apple over Qualcomm today in one case, but things went the other way in a separate decision earlier in the afternoon.
Photo: Qualcomm

Just hours after an International Trade Commission judge ruled in favor of Qualcomm in a patent infringement lawsuit with Apple, the Commission as a whole made the iPhone maker the winner in a separate dispute between the pair of companies.

This is a demonstration of how much acrimony there is between these two, who were once close allies.

Apple Gets Support From Microsoft, Intel & Others In Fight Against iPhone 4 Ban

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iPhone-4-iPad-2

Thanks to Samsung and the International Trade Commission, Apple will be banned from importing the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 into the United States from Sunday, August 4. The Cupertino company has been trying to fight the ban since it was confirmed last October, but it’s had little success.

Now it is seeing unlikely support from Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle, which all agree that the use of standards-essential patents to ban products should not be allowed.

Google’s Motorola Mobility Unit Sues Apple Again Over Seven Patents

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post-185459-image-a21cdb7dba9d87da7808d30effe1a39b-jpg

Today, Bloomberg reports that Google’s Motorola Mobility unit has filed a new case against Apple with the International Trade Commission (ITC). In the claim, Google asserts that seven of Motorola’s patents have been infringed by the Cupertino-based company.

The patents Google is claiming in the case include location-based reminders, email notification, and video players, oddly enough. The suit itself seeks a ban on US imports of devices like the iPhone and iPad as well as Mac computers, all of which are manufactured out of the US, in China.