A US Court of Appeal has granted permission for phones incorporating Qualcomm chips to be imported into the US, but the chips themselves remain banned.

The stay to the original ban, which included handsets containing Qualcomm chips, was granted on the basis that it was unfair to punish the manufacturers for Qualcomm's infringement of Broadcom's patent.

AT&T also argued that network operators were being unfairly punished by restricting access to the latest handsets.

Qualcomm is still banned from importing the chips themselves, or supporting manufacturers in development of new handsets or testing and debugging.

The stay only lasts while the appeal against the ban winds its way through the US legal system, though given the complexity of the arguments and the legal teams lined up on each side, that could be years.

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