Due to the ongoing patent dispute between Apple and HTC, some HTC devices have been held up at the US Customs. It looks like the same could happen to Motorola as the US ITC has awarded Microsoft a pretty significant victory last Friday that basically said that all of Motorola Mobility’s devices should face an American import ban. This is reportedly over a patent pertaining to “generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device.”So could we see Motorola products be banned from entering the US? Well the Obama administration has 60 days to review the ITC’s ruling, in which they have the power to overturn the ban if they choose to. Once the 60 days has passed and there has been no overturn, it looks like the ban will go into effect. Motorola will then have to remove the infringing feature from their devices or enter into a licensing deal with Microsoft if they feel like the feature is too important to be removed. In the mean time, the ITC will be imposing a 33-cent levy on every device imported by Motorola during the 60 day period. So far there has been no official statement from Motorola, but in a statement issued by Microsoft:
“Microsoft sued Motorola in the ITC only after Motorola chose to refuse Microsoft’s efforts to renew a patent license for well over a year,” David Howard, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel and a corporate vice president, told Wired in an e-mail. “We’re pleased the full Commission agreed that Motorola has infringed Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the US by taking a license to our patents.”