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mony22002, You do not understand. For once, Obama acted correctly. . . and it is a proper exercise of his executive powers. This was a decision of an Executive branch administrative regulatory body and he has veto power over it. In fact, he is required to review their action when they ban a product.
The FTC was in violation of the law in this instance because they were claiming Apple was infringing a STANDARDS ESSENTIAL PATENT that Samsung had agreed to license to all cell phone makers under FRAND rules. FRAND mean Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory rates to all members of the Standard setting organization. It is a CONDITION of their technology being included in the standard.
Apple was willing to pay the standard FRAND rate for these patents. But Samsung was demanding from twelve to twenty times MORE from Apple than what they were charging any other cell phone maker. This was not by any means in compliance with the contracts they signed when the patents in question were put into the STANDARD and this action on Samsung's part put in danger the entire concept of standard setting organizations. In fact, Samsung is under investigation in the EU for restraint of trade for denying using standard essential patents in just such a manner against Apple and Microsoft in an attempt to force those companies to license non-SEP patents to Samsung. Judges in the EU have roundly criticized Samsung, Motorola, and Google for making such attempts to misuse SEPs and ignoring FRAND. There are literally THOUSANDS of patents in each standard that must be licensed at a reasonable rate for cell phones to interoperate and if all the patent owners did what Samsung did to Apple, NO standards could exist, no company would put their patents in the standard pool (Apple has several dozen patents in the pool) , and cell phones would become cost prohibitive. JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE the FTC made its ruling in this case, the Department of Justice released a statement reiterating that Standards essential patents were NOT to be used in such a manner. Obama even mention it in a speech the next day on patent reform. Then the FTC REVERSED the finding of the JUDGE that there was no infringement based on evidence, and ordered the ban! If there ever was a case crying out for a veto, this was it!
In fact these accusations by Samsung had been tossed out of every court in the world where Samsung raised them because under international law it is called a "patent hold-up!" SEP are not supposed to be used in this manner as Samsung has been attempting and the FTC is acting in contravention of international law AND its OWN PURPOSE!
Samsung is using these Standard Essential Patents as a weapon against Apple because the lost a major patent infringement case of non-SEP patents that Apple wine. The FTC was 100% wrong to order the banning of Apple products based on this.
Secondly, the FTC's purpose is to protect US businesses against illegal patent infringement of FOREIGN businesses. . . and the last I looked, Apple is a US COMPANY and Samsung is a 100% Korean owned company! What is the Federal Trade Commission doing banning a US company's products to benefit a Korean company????