Early last June, the International Trade Commission issued an import ban on older iPhones and iPads, following a ruling that these devices had infringed upon Samsung’s standards-essential patents.

But Apple being Apple, the company was not about to back out from a challenge and immediately filed for an appeal.  And just as well, for it seems that the company has some very good friends in some very high places, with no less than the president ready to get its back.

Over the weekend, the Obama Administration issued a veto on the proposed ban by the ITC. In a letter from the U.S. government to the United States International Trade Commission, Chairman Irving A. Williamson made the following statement:

“After extensive consultations with the agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee and the Trade Policy Review Group … I have decided to disapprove the USITC’s determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order in this investigation,”

This is the first veto of its kind in over 25 years, and promises to upend the long-running legal battles in the smartphone market and could possibly even change the strategies of both tech giants as they attempt to defend their inventions.

Apple said that it was elated with the president’s intervention, adding that Samsung was wrong to abuse its patents.  As for Samsung, unsurprisingly the South Korean giant is rather pissed at what happened.

“We are disappointed that the U.S. Trade Representative has decided to set aside the exclusion order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC’s decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license,” Samsung stated.

Of course, there will certainly be a few eyebrows raised by this decision. Back when Apple won its $1 billion case against Samsung, one has to question why the US administration remained so quiet when, if you consider its reason for intervening in this case, surely it should have made that statement a long time ago?  Or is this just a case of the government favoring a US company?