Microsoft Lumia phones face an import ban in the US over patent issue

The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) has said in a ruling that Microsoft's Lumia series phones infringe on a pair of patents belonging to InterDigital. Microsoft lost the lawsuit and faces a ban on the import of Lumia Windows Phone handsets in the country.

InterDigital Inc. had claimed that Microsoft violated its wireless patents by using its technology in its Lumia devices without permission. The lawsuit was filed against Nokia earlier, in which Nokia was cleared. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the ruling and since Microsoft acquired Nokia's devices division, it had to face the music in court yesterday. If Microsoft does not manage to successfully appeal against this ruling, it could face a ban on the import of its handsets into the US.

According to Reuters, ITC judge Theodore Essex has ruled that "Microsoft infringed on two wireless cellular patents owned by InterDigital". He further ruled that it would "not be against the public interest to ban the Microsoft devices from import into the United States".

Microsoft can import devices until The ITC comes to a conclusion before the end of August.
This could turn turn out to be a major blow to the Redmond-based technology giant, given its plans to launch Windows 10 based Lumia devices this year.