A group of small mobile phone carriers in the United States has sent a letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission expressing opposition to a possible sales ban of Samsung Electronics’ mobile devices in the country.

The move by the association of 36 mobile carriers in the United States came ahead of the ITC’s August ruling on Apple’s claims that Samsung had infringed its patents.

It is in contrast with a group of U.S. lawmakers who sent a letter to the trade agency last month calling for careful consideration of a possible ban on sales of some Apple devices. Despite the plea, the ITC made a ruling in favor of Samsung at the end of last month.

Foss Patents, a Germany-based blog which covers patent-related news and issues, said that 12 activists including Associated Carrier Group filed the letter to the ITC.

“Samsung devices account for more than 60 percent of ACG members’ total sales, and we could not reallocate purchases in the short term because of the volume and variety of Samsung’s devices,” the letter said.

The Institute for Policy Innovation also indicated its position to the ITC that it should not accept any request from Apple. The institute complained about overly broad patents such as rounded corners, saying, “We would prefer the ITC not to issue exclusion orders in this matter or at least to keep them limited in scope and well thought out.”

The ITC will give its final ruling over imposing an import ban on Samsung smartphones on Aug. 1.

By Choi In-jeong (injeongchoi@heraldcorp.com)