A US court lifted a temporary sales ban against South Korean company Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet won by Apple in a patent dispute in June this year.
The court allowed Samsung to sell the product in the US and found that the company did not infringe design patents, which was the basis for the US court to award a termporary ban on the sales of Galaxy Tab 10.1.
US District Judge Lucy Koh issued a preliminary sales injunction after finding that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 likely violated an Apple patent on tablet design.
In the latest ruling, Koh mentioned that the basis for the injunction no longer exists and also ruled that $2.6m bond posted by Apple as a condition of obtaining the preliminary injunction will not be released until post-trial motions are resolved.
Samsung said the ruling "vindicates our position that there was no infringement of Apple’s design patent and that an injunction was not called for."
Separately, Samsung filed a motion against Apple saying the iPhone 5 had infringed eight of its patents which include two standard and six features.
The iPhone 5 infringement case is scheduled for trial in 2014.
In August 2012, Apple had won a patent lawsuit against Samsung, which is claimed to be one of the biggest patent cases in decades, and has also been awarded $1.05bn in damages.
Apple had initially demanded more than $2.5bn in damages from Samsung for the infringement.
Samsung had won a case in the UK in July 2102 with a High Court judge ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices do not infringe on Apple’s iPad designs.
Samsung also has court battles against Apple which are set to commence in Germany, France and Italy in the following months.
