IBM loses patent dispute with Asus

The US International Trade Commission rejects allegations that Asus infringed on three IBM patents

The US International Trade Commission Monday rejected an IBM request to review a decision that denied the company's attempts to block the import of hardware made by Asustek on patent infringement grounds.

IBM in January of last year filed a patent infringement complaint with the ITC, alleging that Asus was importing and selling infringing products in the US. The ITC decided that it will not review the ruling of an administrative judge, who found that Asus had not infringed on IBM patents, and terminated the investigation.

Asus, which is based in Taiwan, sells PCs, and hardware including motherboards, PC components and peripherals.

The patents cover fan, power supply and networking technologies. The patents filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office are numbers 5,008,829, 5,249,741 and 5,371,852.

In March, an ITC administrative judge ruled in favour of Asustek, saying it did not infringe IBM's patents.

"We are disappointed with the Commission's decision and will review our options for taking an appeal to the Federal Circuit," said an IBM spokesman. Asus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.