The International Trade Commission on Wednesday agreed to hear Samsung's patent case against Apple.
The commission "has voted to institute an investigation of certain electronic devices, including wireless communication devices, portable music and data processing devices, and tablet computers," the ITC said in a statement. Samsung wants the commission to block U.S. imports of the iPhone, iPod, and iPad.
Samsung filed its complaint in late June, about two months after Apple sued Samsung for copying the look and feel of its iPhone and iPad with its Galaxy S line of smartphones and tablets, among other devices. Samsung responded with a countersuit that targeted Apple for infringing on five patents relating to wireless networking technology.
Apple hit back with its own ITC complaint in early July, which sought to block the import of Samsung Galaxy S phones and Galaxy Tab tablets.
The news comes several days after the ITC found that Apple's Mac OS X operating system violates patents from S3 Graphics related to graphics chips, though iOS does not. According to Bloomberg, the ruling could result in a U.S. ban on imports of certain Macs.
As FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller pointed out, S3 is in the midst of being acquired by HTC, which is also battling Apple over patents. The S3 ruling, however, probably won't help HTC.
"It looks like HTC is going to have to use some other patents than the four at issue in that proceeding in order to put Apple under serious pressure," Mueller wrote. "Right now it seems that the validity of those four S3 patents is uncertain, and even the worst-case scenario for Apple may just come down to a need to equip its Macintosh computers with Nvidia chips."
"The iPhone, iPad and iPod product lines aren't even affected at all. Against that background, Apple can apparently keep pursuing its multiple lawsuits against HTC," he said.