On Saturday, the Obama Administration vetoed the International Trade Commission’s (ITC) potential ban on a few models of older Apple phones and tablets.

Samsung opened the case against Apple with the ITC in 2011, and the commission decided in June that Apple had, in fact, infringed upon a Samsung patent, US Patent No 7,706,348. The decision garnered attention because the patent is considered essential to industry standards, meaning Samsung is required to license the patent (rather than sit on it or refuse to license it to some competitors). The ITC ended up recommending that a ban be placed on the infringing products brought forward in the case, which included AT&T models of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3, iPad 3G, and iPad 2 3G.

In June of 2013, Ars wrote of the ITC's ban: ”The decision can only be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the nation's top patent court. Theoretically, the president can also block an ITC-ordered import ban, but that hasn't happened since the 1980s.”

Well, now we'll have to restart the countdown since the president's office has blocked an ITC-ordered import ban.

US Trade Representative Michael Froman made the decision to overturn the ban and released a ruling today. In his ruling, Froman expressed concern that a ban on Apple's products would abuse Samsung's right to the essential patent, which involves encoding and decoding information on a CDMA cell phone network:

“Standards, and particularly voluntary concensus-based standards set by [standards developing organizations], have come to play an increasingly important role in the US economy. Important policy considerations arise in the enforcement of those patents incorporated into technical standards without which such standards cannot be implemented as designed...”

In other words, decisions about patents that are part of industry-wide standards must be weighed as affecting US economic concerns, beyond simply weighing a company's right to make money off that patent.

Froman also warned the ITC that any future bans on standards-essential patents should be examined “thoroughly and carefully” before the commission decides if a ban is in the public interest. The trade representative also pointed out that his decision did not render Samsung's patent worthless; Samsung still has a right to seek a remedy against Apple in the court system.