Obama Administration Overrules iPhone Trade Ban

Back in June, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued an import ban on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 3G due to patent violations. Now, the White House has exercised its privilege to overrule the ban. In his letter to the ITC (PDF), Ambassador Michael Froman said 'he was not making a decision about the merits of Samsung's case, or its right to seek compensation. Rather, he emphasized that because the patent in question was now a widely held technology standard, banning the products in question would be too disruptive to consumers and the economy.' This is the first time an ITC decision has been overruled since 1987.

Comments

Re:Strangely...

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

So they should select an illegal recourse like apple or microsoft and use other intellectual property without paying for them and be patentpirates ?

Suing in court for banning of products is what the politicians has proposed as plan for corporations to follow when criminal corporations break the law and uses their innovations without license.

Re:You know

[Trepidity]

How is the executive "ignoring" the law? When Congress passed the law, they included a section that explicitly directs the president to review all determinations of the ITC on a case-by-case basis, and approve or reject its proposals. In doing so, the President is supposed to consider whether the ITC's determinations conform with U.S. policy.

If Congress wanted the ITC's determinations to go through without case-by-case presidential review, they should've written a law saying so. There was no "duly authorized" anything here, because Congress explicitly declined to give the ITC power to authorize anything without Presidential approval.