In its Friday ruling in the Apple-Samsung patent-infringement case, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit temporarily lifted the preliminary injunction which a lower court set last week against the sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the country.

Though the appeals court turned down Samsung's request for putting the sales ban of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet on hold, it ruled that that the ban on the Galaxy Nexus sales is being temporarily lifted till the court considers Apple's response - for which it has been given a July 12 deadline - to Samsung's appeal of the ban on both the devices.

It was on June 29 that U. S. District Judge Lucy Koh imposed the ban on the US sales of the Galaxy Nexus handset, in a ruling which stated that Apple would likely win its claims that Samsung had violated four valid patents.

Judge Koh's verdict marked a big win for Apple because it came close on the heels of Google's announcement at its I/O developer conference that the Galaxy Nexus will be one of the first devices to run the forthcoming version of Android OS - version 4.1 `Jelly Bean' - when the device is released.

Meanwhile, talking about the legal proceedings, Teri Daley - spokeswoman for Samsung's mobile division - said during the course of an interview that Samsung will "continue to work the courts process," and added: "Simultaneously we're working with Google because the patent in question involves their unified search function."