ITC Imposes Ban on Importation of New 3G Mobile Phones in US

By Michael Oryl

Today (June 07, 2007) the US government's International Trade Commission issued a ban on certain Qualcomm 3G chipsets that it finds are in violation of certain Broadcom patents pertaining to power management and mobile device management. The ITC states that the ban will also prohibit the importation of new models of mobile phones that make use of these chipsets.

The ban on 3G mobile phones that use Qualcomm's chipsets is limited to new models of devices only. Current models that are already on sale in the USA fall under a grandfather clause in the ban that allows them to continue to be imported in spite of their containing chipsets that infringe on the Broadcom patents. This means that the 3G devices that are on store shelves today may stay on the market much longer than the carriers and the phone manufacturers had intended, since they will be unable to bring in many future, and patent infringing, handset models that are not already on sale.

Since we do not yet know which phone handset manufacturers are using the prohibited Qualcomm chipsets, we can not state with any certainty which manufacturers will be able to import new models of handsets. It seems likely that Samsung and LG, both strong in the CDMA 3G world that is dominated by Qualcomm chips, will run afoul of this ban and might have trouble getting newly announced and future 3G devices on the US market.

Samsung USA's Kim Titus, Director of Public Relations, spoke with us over the phone regarding the ban. Mr Titus told us that Samsung has been working with its suppliers and customers to ensure that there will be an uninterrupted supply of future Samsung products and that the company is confident that it will be able to continue to provide handsets to customers.

This story is sure to make big waves in the mobile industry.