Apple will have to wait just awhile longer before it gets a final ruling in one of its court battles against Samsung, as a judge for the International Trade Commission on Wednesday scheduled a final ruling for the first of August.
Florian Mueller’s Foss Patents reported Wednesday that Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender entered a scheduling order setting Aug. 1, 2013, as a target final decision date. Pender will have to make a remand initial determination on or before April 1.
The ruling will concern Pender’s October decision that Samsung was in violation of three Apple utility patents and one design patent. Pender made a recommendation to the ITC that it institute a U.S. import band on certain Samsung products due to their infringement of Apple patents. Those include: Multitouch, translucent images on a display, headphone plug detection circuits, and the design of the original iPhone.
In January, the ITC sent two of the patents, the audio jack and translucent image display, back to Pender for reconsideration.
If Pender should rule in Apple’s favor, import bans on the infringing Samsung Galaxy products are still not a certainty. The Korean company has already designed workarounds for several of the alleged violations, although it is uncertain if those alterations will sway the court in any way.
