Galaxy Note 4, other Samsung Android devices facing potential sales ban in U.S.

NVIDIA on Monday announced that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has voted to investigate whether certain Samsung devices, targeted in a recent NVIDIA suit against the South Korean giant and Qualcomm, should be banned from sales in the U.S. or not.

NVIDIA alleges that Samsung’s own Exynos processors, and various Qualcomm CPUs including the Snapdragon S4, 400, 600, 800, 801 and 805, are in violation of certain GPU patents.

Thus, NVIDIA is asking the ITC to ban several Samsung devices, including the recently launched Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4, but also the older Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4, Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab 2.

“We are pleased with the ITC decision today to open an investigation and look forward to presenting our case on how NVIDIA GPU patents are being used without a license,” executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Nvidia David Shannon said.

This isn’t the first time the ITC has investigated Samsung in patent-related claims, with the company having already received a sales ban from the Commission in the U.S. in Apple-related ITC proceedings in early August last year.

However, Apple won a ban on older Samsung devices, whereas NVIDIA is targeted many 2014 and 2013 Samsung smartphones and tablets. In fact, Samsung has not even started selling the Galaxy Note Edge and the Galaxy Note 4 in the U.S., with the latter phablet version expected to hit stores on October 17th in North America.

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