ITC Judge Recommends XBox Should be Banned from U.S.

In an ongoing patent legal battle between Motorola Mobility and Microsoft, International Trade Commission Judge David Shaw has made the recommendation that the importing and sale of the Microsoft XBox be banned in the United States.

ITC Administrative Law Judge David Shaw decided in April that the Xbox has violated four Motorola patents that pertain to the H.264 video compression codec and wireless technologies used in both gaming controllers and consoles. Last month, in deciding that the Xbox was violating Motorola’s patents, Shaw made no recommendation to halt Xbox sales or imports. In the court document, released to the public on Monday, that changed and Shaw recommended the bans. [WIRED]

In the court filing, Motorola has asked for the XBox to be banned in the U.S. and for Microsoft to be fined for an amount equal to all the XBox Consoles sold here in the states. However, this is merely a recommendation by the ITC Judge; this recommendation will now move to an ITC Board comprised of six judges who will review the recommendation, and should this panel agree with Shaw’s recommendation it will then hit the desk of President Barack Obama where he will then make the final decision to enforce this verdict or to throw it out.

That’s right folks, President Obama could end up deciding the fate of the XBox.

Microsoft remains confident that the ITC Board will ultimately rule in their favor, and despite this ban recommendation being made by Judge Shaw, Microsoft and Motorola Mobility could still settle their dispute prior to this moving forward. Emphasis on “could”. Microsoft has also argued that banning the sales of XBoxes in the U.S. would be detrimental to the public, leaving them only two options for gaming consoles, the Sony Playstation and Nintendo Wii. In response, Judge Shaw noted that he was confident that Sony and Nintendo are capable of picking up the slack.

Something tells me this Judge doesn’t quite understand how the gaming industry works . . .

For right now, the recommendation to ban XBox sales in the U.S. will continue to move forward. While I doubt we will ultimately see the XBox banned in the U.S., I am very curious to see how this all shakes out.

[Source: WIRED]