Samsung (News - Alert) has won a minor legal victory from a U.S. appeals court regarding the initial sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

With the recent ruling, Samsung Electronics can move ahead with its attempts to lift the preliminary ban on U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The ruling by the federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., lets U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh hear arguments on the ban, even though Apple (News - Alert) wants the ban to continue.


Image via www.samsung.com

But Koh may lift the ban. Koh will “weigh the harm Samsung is allegedly suffering from further enforcement of the injunction against the likelihood of success of the D'889-related part of Apple's Rule 50 ("overrule-the-jury") motion,” according to the Foss Patents blog. “The D'889 patent is the tablet design patent on which this preliminary injunction is based.”

The new order on the ban was issued by the appeals court on Friday.

“We grant the motion and remand for the purpose of allowing the trial court to consider Samsung's motion and Apple's arguments in opposition thereto,” according to the order from the appeals court as reported by Foss Patents. “The appeal is held in abeyance pending further ruling from the trial court. ... The Federal Circuit takes no position on the proceedings the trial court should employ in considering the motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction or on the merits of the motion.”

In its analysis of the recent ruling, Foss Patents said Samsung “has pretty good chances of winning dissolution of the preliminary injunction at this stage.”

But the blog post warned that Apple later could be granted a permanent injunction against further infringement of the D'889 patent.

During the carefully-watched California trial, Samsung was not found to have violated a patent that related to the tablet injunction.

But, over the summer, Apple was awarded $1.05 billion, after the jury concluded Samsung improperly copied features of the iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad. Samsung also could be ordered to pay damages up to an additional $3 billion.

In a related matter, in about a month Samsung is supposed to unveil the new version of the Note.

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