Although the International Trade Commission’s Judge David Shaw is recommending a ban on Xbox 360 sales in America due to infringement on Motorola Mobile patents, that ban likely won’t happen.

At least, that’s the professional opinion of patent expert Florian Mueller, according to GamesIndustry International. In an exclusive interview, Mueller noted that a ban on popular consumer products of that scale would be surprising, especially considering that the ITC’s six-person Commission board doesn’t normally adopt judges’ recommendations:

“Even if the Commission agreed with the judge on some or all of the violations, there are public interest considerations for which an exclusion order should not be entered, or at least not before or during the Christmas Selling Season. The more Xbox games makers write to the ITC about this, the less likely an import ban will be.  

“If many games makes write to the ITC, then I doubt that there will be ever be an actual Xbox import ban. What’s more likely to happen is that a federal court in Microsoft’s home state of Washington will set the terms of a license agreement that Motorola and Microsoft will have to enter into. As a result, Microsoft will be licensed and the Xbox won’t be an infringing product.”

Considering that the deadlines to deliberate on the rulings fall right in the lead-up to the holiday season, one would think that several gaming publishers and developers would raise a huge stink if one-third of the big three available gaming consoles were suddenly barred from store shelves. Even if the public didn’t get involved, petitions from those companies would more than likely cause a policy and ruling change.

Hopefully, Mueller is right, and drastic measures won’t be taken here. Why can’t tech giants play nice?

Source: GamesIndustry International