U.S. Ban On 18 Motorola Smartphones and Tablets Starts

The United States International Trade Commission in May ordered an import ban on various Motorola Mobility Android devices for infringing upon Microsoft’s patent covering the creation of meeting requests from a mobile device. While the ban is scheduled to take effect Wednesday, July 18th, the company said it has undisclosed plans to keep its Android smartphones and tablets on store shelves. It is unclear if Motorola, which is owned by Google, will pay Microsoft to license the technology, or if it plans to remove the infringing feature from the 18 products affected by the ITC ruling.

“In view of the ITC exclusion order which becomes effective Wednesday with respect to the single ActiveSync patent upheld in Microsoft’s ITC-744 proceeding, Motorola has taken proactive measures to ensure that our industry leading smartphones remain available to consumers in the US,” A Motorola spokesperson told Ars Technica. “We respect the value of intellectual property and expect other companies to do the same.”

The ITC ruling covers the Motorola Atrix, Backflip, Bravo, Charm, Cliq, Cliq 2, Cliq XT, Defy, Devour, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Droid Pro, Droid X, Droid X2, Flipout, Flipside, Spice and Xoom.