A U.S. trade judge on Tuesday recommended Qualcomm Inc be granted a request for an import ban on some iPhones sold by Apple Inc – though the judge’s initial determination was not binding and will be reviewed by the agency. The final ruling may come as early as this afternoon (5PM Eastern), according to Reuters.

Yet according to patent analyst Florian Mueller, Apple has already defeated Qualcomm's first ITC complaint with a workaround in iOS 12.1 and later, blessed by Qualcomm's CTO. But of course it's not always that simple and you should check out Mueller's full report here for a full analysis of this latest development.

A final (apart from a possible appeal) Commission decision just came down at 5 PM Eastern Time in the investigation of Qualcomm's first ITC complaint against Apple. The final ruling is that there is no violation.

Apple's petition for a review of the infringement holding had been granted in December, while Qualcomm's petition for review had been denied.

As a result of the ITC finding that the sole remaining patent-in-suit being invalid, any further public-interest analysis has became unnecessary.

Apple's official response to today's ruling: "We’re pleased the ITC has found Qualcomm’s latest patent claims invalid, it’s another important step to making sure American companies are able to compete fairly in the marketplace. Qualcomm is using these cases to distract from having to answer for the real issues, their monopolistic business practices. They are being investigated by governments around the world for their behavior and we look forward to detailing the many ways they’re harming consumers and stifling innovation when we present our case in San Diego next month.”

The ruling is noted in the Scribd document below.

  Qualcomm Apple PDF by Jack Purcher on Scribd

For more analysis on this case, be sure to check out Florian Mueller's full report here.

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