Over the next 60 days, US President Barack Obama faces a dilemma in a dispute pitting two of the world's biggest companies against each other and carrying far-reaching implications about the ownership of intellectual property in the technology sector.

Mr Obama could use his presidential powers to overturn a ruling by the International Trade Commission, a Washington agency, that on Tuesday banned Apple from selling certain iPhones and iPads in the US.

Alternatively, he could follow the example of most of his predecessors in such cases and stand by the ITC ruling. This would favour South Korea's Samsung, Apple's bitter rival that was found in an earlier case to be copying the iPhone's designs.

"These are two electronics giants; he's going to offend someone whichever way he goes," says Susan Kohn Ross, a partner specialising in trade disputes and intellectual property at law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

Mr Obama’s quandary comes as his administration has put renewed focus on patent reform. The last US president to use his veto in an ITC case was Ronald Reagan. Bans ordered by the ITC are subject to a 60-day window in which they are reviewed by the president.

If there is pressure on Mr Obama, it is greater on Apple, which until now had fared well in the US courts. Tuesday’s sudden reversal of last autumn’s preliminary ITC ruling, which had also cleared Apple of infringing Samsung’s patents, came as a surprise to many US observers.

The ITC found that Apple’s AT&T versions of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2, along with some older devices no longer on sale, infringed on one Samsung patent and should be banned from import into the US.

The devices caught by the import ban are the AT&T variants of the iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G, as well as the original iPad and iPad 2. – (The Financial Times )