US appeals court repeals ban on Samsung Galaxy US sales

In the ongoing global patent battle between technology giants Apple and Samsung, a US appeals court lifted the ban on sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus 7 smartphones in the US over the weekend, but left intact a ban on sales of its Galaxy 10.1 tablet computer.

The appeals court ruling comes a few days after Judge Lucy Koh of the US district court in San Jose, California, granted Apple a preliminary injunction of halting sales of the South Korean company's Galaxy Nexus 7 smartphone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US market. (See: US court blocks Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the US)

Koh granted Apple a preliminary injunction on finding that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be a lot similar "in the eyes of the ordinary observer" to an Apple patent and "virtually indistinguishable" from Apple's iPad and iPad 2, while the Galaxy Nexus 7 smartphone may infringe an Apple patent on ''unified search,'' a feature in which Apple's Siri voice assistant searches both the web and the contents of a mobile device.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned Koh's ruling, which would have temporarily banned Samsung from selling the Galaxy Nexus 7 smartphone until the patent trial commenced on 30 June.

The Appeals court however said that it could reinforce the ban after hearing arguments from Apple, and gave the Cupertino, California-based company until 12 July to respond.

The Appeals court did not lift the temporary sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, which Apple alleges to have similar designs, some features and nearly identical screen sizes to its own iPad tablet computer.