Motorola US shipment ban on its android devices to start Wednesday

The US International Trade Commission has ordered a ban on shipments of 18 of Motorola's Android-based smartphone or tablet devices to the United States, starting on Wednesday.

According to Ars Technica, Motorola, which is now owned by Google, claims to have some kind of plan to continue getting its products into the US. Nobody has any idea what those plans may be so far, as the company is silent about them. The cause of all this is an ITC decision that ruled 18 of Motorola's Android devices use ActiveSync patents that are owned by Microsoft. Motorola had previously proposed for a settlement on this issue, but Microsoft did not agree with the terms.

Google and Motorola could now decide to pay a royalty to Microsoft for all of the devices affected by the ban, similar to the deals Microsoft has with many other companies that make Android based hardware. Motorola could also release a software update that gets around the patents or simply remove the features that infringe on the ActiveSync patents.

The affected devices are the Motorola Atrix, Backflip, Bravo, Charm, Cliq, Cliq 2, Cliq XT, Defy, Devour, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Droid Pro, Droid X, Droid X2, Flipout, Flipside, Spice and the Motorola Xoom tablet.