The U.S. International Trade Commission has formally opened a patent investigation into Samsung smartphones and tablets, and the company that asked for it wants those devices barred from entering the United States. The notice instituting Investigation No. 337-TA-1516 was published in the Federal Register today, three days after the Commission voted to take the case up.
The complainant is Maxell, Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan — the Japanese storage and electronic-components maker. Maxell filed its original complaint on July 10, 2026 and an amended version on July 24. The respondents named in the notice are Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Suwon, South Korea and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey.
What the Samsung ITC investigation actually covers
Section 337 cases are import cases, not damages cases. The Commission is not being asked to make Samsung write a cheque; it is being asked to stop the accused products at the border. Maxell has requested that the Commission issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders.
The scope is unusually blunt. Rather than listing model numbers, the notice defines the accused products in one line. The plain-language description, in the Commission’s own words, is “smartphones and tablets, i.e., those branded and sold by Samsung.” That phrasing is what legally bounds the investigation, and it is wide enough to reach across Samsung’s Galaxy phone and tablet range rather than a single handset.
Six US patents are in play — Nos. 10,812,646; 12,513,408; 12,061,760; 12,418,692; 12,185,211 and 12,647,935 — with specific claims from each identified in the Commission’s order. Maxell also has to prove a separate point that is easy to overlook: that a domestic US industry exists tied to those patents. Without it, a Section 337 complaint fails no matter how the infringement question comes out.
What happens next, and what it means for buyers
Right now, nothing changes for anyone holding a Galaxy phone. It is worth being precise about what today’s document is and is not. The ITC has agreed to investigate; it has not found that Samsung infringed anything, and the notice contains no finding against Samsung at all. An exclusion order is what Maxell is asking for, not something that has been granted.
The one hard date in the notice is a deadline for Samsung: responses to the complaint must be filed no later than 20 days after the Commission serves it, and extensions will not be granted without good cause shown. Failure to respond on time can be treated as a waiver — and the notice spells out that this can itself lead to an exclusion or cease and desist order. The Commission has not yet published a hearing schedule or target date, and the Chief Administrative Law Judge has still to assign the judge who will preside. The Office of Unfair Import Investigations, the ITC’s own independent investigative arm, will not take part as a party in this one.
For US buyers, the point worth holding on to is that the remedy being sought is a supply remedy rather than a financial one, and it is aimed at one of the largest Android vendors in the country. That is what makes it worth tracking in a way an ordinary patent damages suit would not be. It is also a long way from any outcome: the investigation has only just been instituted, and the Commission has published no schedule for it. Samsung has not commented publicly on the institution of the investigation.
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission notice, Federal Register Vol. 91 No. 156
