An appeals court Thursday lifted an injunction placed on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus device in late June after Apple claimed that the device was too similar to the iPhone. The ban was put in place before the Samsung-Apple patent trial from which Apple emerged with a verdict in its favor.
Court documents filed Thursday say the earlier sales injunction has been “reversed and remanded,” (PDF) as was first noted by Reuters. The appeals court found that the earlier decision to put the sales ban in place was made in error. The judges also said that Apple was unable to successfully establish that the quick search box in Android found on the Galaxy Nexus was so similar to the iPhone’s universal search that it would cause Apple to lose sales, which was the reason given earlier for banning the device.
It’s good news for Samsung that it’s removed a major threat to one of its flagship devices intended to showcase Android 4.0. But it’s still on the hook for more than $ 1 billion in damages for the rest of its mobile devices found to infringe on a handful of Apple mobile patents earlier this year.
