ITC Now Tapped by Apple to Ban Nokia Imports

Those keeping a close eye on the activity on the International Trade Comission website have spotted a notice of complaint from Apple posted on Friday without any detail. The Mac maker has reportedly asked the International Trade Commission to ban the import of Nokia's phones in the U.S, in a move responding to Nokia’s filing asking to ban Apple imports. The ITC oversees the U.S. trade and deals with matters that include patent infringement.

Nokia is known to have previously asked the ITC to ban the import of Apple products, including iPhones, iPods and MacBooks, in the U.S. The cell-phone maker has recently filed its own complaint with the ITC accusing the iPhone maker of treading on seven distinct patents applying to user interface, camera, antenna and power management.

Softpedia earlier reported that, in its December 29 filing, the Finnish company seeks an immediate injunction that would ban the import of Apple products that use cameras, the screen-dimming technology, text-messaging capabilities, and more. Nokia claims Apple is infringing patents pertaining to GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards, and more. A report by 9to5Mac offers the names of some of the inventions allegedly stolen by Apple and implemented in its own products.

"The seven Nokia patents in this complaint relate to Nokia's pioneering innovations that are now being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the area of user interface, as well as camera, antenna and power management technologies," Nokia stated at the time. "These patented technologies are important to Nokia's success as they allow better user experience, lower manufacturing costs, smaller size and longer battery life for Nokia products."

The battle between Nokia and Apple began in October, when the former sued the Cupertino-based company over the use of patented wireless standards. At the time, Nokia’s only allegations were that the iPhone infringed on GSM- and wireless LAN-related patents that Nokia apparently owned. According to Nokia, while other companies using the technologies pay for the benefits, Apple doesn’t.