U.S. Bans Some Cellphones For Patent Reasons

runner_one writes "According to the New York Times, A federal agency has banned imports of new cellphones made with Qualcomm semiconductors because the chips violate a patent held by Broadcom. The International Trade Commission said today that the import ban would not apply to mobile phone models that were imported on or before June 7." Update: 06/08 13:05 GMT by KD : Glenn Fleishman notes that Apple's iPhone will be allowed into the country, since it doesn't use any 3G chips. He adds that Apple "might have the most advanced smartphone on the market unless President Bush or his trade representative overturn the ruling (which they have the power to do)."

Comments

Re:what phones use this?

[Anne Thwacks]

You mean someone actually makes phones that don't do this. This is not just obvious, I would sack an engineer working for me that failed to design this in. We were doing this with pagers in the 1980's.

I think a few USPTO people should go to Guano bay for not doing their duty.

Re:Personal use?

[arivanov]

He probably meant customs, not immigration and here is some supporting evidence in the form of a quote from an interview with Ewan Mcgregor (I have heard a few other actors sharing similar experiences on other talk shows):

• Kirsty : Did you come to people's attention after you did rainspotting?
• Ewan : In the states, yeah, that changed things yeah.
• Kirsty : Still look back on that and think it was a great performance?
• Ewan : It was fantastic, I was quite pleased with myself in it , yeah. Best shoot, smoothest experience, best actors, best crew it was fantastic. Around that time at Chicago airport going to do ER, US customs asked what I was doing and I explained that he might have seen me in Trainspotting, sent over to Red immigration zone and stripped off. 'But I'm an actor for christs sake!, I'm not really a heroin addict!'

Yep, Ewan go and tell that to US customs. Same for "I am not really bringing that phone for resale".

Re:Personal use?

[Mattsson]

Maybe a terrorist has hidden a lithium-ion battery in the phone.
They're explosive you know. ^_^

Re:US Patent office should pay compensation

[Dunbal]

Like it or not, patents are a mainstay of the US economy.

      So, uhhh, how many years before the US economy expires?

Re:The quote of the day...

[jdrew77]

How is the iPhone the most advanced when it doesn't have a 3g chip? Im sure all those cool features will work great at 80kbps..... NOT

Re:broadcom

[An ominous Cow art]

145% of Slashdot posters exaggerate with regard to the state of moderation.