Import ban on Motorola Android devices takes effect

The ruling by the International Trade Commission two months ago against a number of products in Motorola's Android range takes effect today, blocking them from being imported into the United States.  In total, eighteen of their products are effected by the ban including the Motorola Atrix, Defy, Droid X2, and Xoom.

Motorola Mobility, who are now owned by Google, say that they have a plan in place to ensure that their devices remain available to buy in the US although it hasn't yet made any details public.  The ITC proceedings were initiated after Microsoft made a complaint that a number of Motorola Mobility devices infringed on a patent relating to their ActiveSync techology.

Until 2007, Motorola was actually paying a license fee to Microsoft to use this technology.  Even though they stopped paying the license fee, Motorola carried on using this technology in their products.

There are a number of ways in which Motorola could comply with the ITC ruling, including issuing a software update which either removes the ActiveSync feature or changes the way it's implemented.  They could also consider paying Microsoft the license fee again.

KitGuru says: Motorola haven't yet made it clear how they plan to comply with the ruling but we expect them to make their intentions clear in the near future.

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