Bloomberg report that Korean panel manufacturing giant Samsung has lost it's case against Sharp's litigation on patent infringements in the USA.

The decision from the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington now heads to President Barack Obama, who can overturn the ban if he finds it’s contrary to the public interest. Samsung has also asked an appeals court that specializes in patent law to put the ban on hold while a challenge to the underlying patent case is pending.

In a tit for tat situation this follows on from an earlier ruling wherin Sharp were not allowed to ship certain Aquos models to the USA that apparently infringed a patent ruling in Samsung's favour regarding a particular wide angle viewing technology.

Samsung will apparently have to post a bond that covers 100 percent of the value of the imported products during the presidential review period so it can continue sales in the USA in the meantime.

It will be interesting to see if President Obama decides that Samsung's continuity of TV purveyance in the USA is "in the public interest". From a politicians point of view one assumes the more TV's there are being sold for less out there the better. Although conversely one could argue that it might be an opportunity to reign in a very cruel balance of trade imbalance ...