iPhones Could Face Ban In US Over Apple’s China Supplier’s Patent Dispute

Washington: Some iPhones may be at risk of a ban in the United States due to an ongoing patent dispute involving one of Apple’s suppliers in China. A preliminary ruling from the United States International Trade Commission has underscored that Beijing-headquartered BOE infringed on Samsung’s OLED trade secrets and manipulated them to build display panels for the iPhone. Although this is not a final judgment, the infringement case could enforce a ban on all the iPhone models that use BOE’s displays.

According to Korean publication ET News, Samsung Display has won the case wherein it accused BOE of stealing its OLED panel manufacturing techniques and using them to build displays for Apple, which sources its iPhone displays also from Samsung and LG.

Samsung filed a complaint with the ITC, urging the regulatory body to ban BOE from manufacturing iPhone displays and their sale in the US. ITC is the same body that banned Apple from selling Apple Watches with a blood oxygen monitoring feature after it lost a patent infringement case to a healthtech company called Masimo.

ITC has now ruled that BOE is in violation of the international trade patent infringement, with necessary measures to ban imports of such displays to the US to be announced soon. This is a preliminary ruling, so it will not cause an immediate ban on the iPhones with BOE displays, but it has a major role to play in deciding the outcome of the infringement case.

“The preliminary judgment is not the final conclusion, but it has a significant impact because the ITC makes an investigation into unfair trade,” said the report, citing rarity in ITC’s judgment reversals.

If the ITC decides against the sale of iPhones with BOE displays in the US, Apple will be forced to recall the existing models and immediately stop the sale of such models. However, both Apple and BOE can approach the US President, who can veto the ruling against Samsung.