Samsung Suspends Galaxy Nexus Sales Order Rejection

On Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed Samsung’s request to suspend enforcement of its Galaxy Nexus smartphone ban.

U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh said there is insufficient evidence to support Samsung’s suspension of sales orders during appeals. Last week, Gao Lanhui approved Apple’s request to ban the Samsung smartphone.

Last Friday, based on Apple’s alleged infringement of several patents by Samsung in February of this year, Gao agreed to issue a request to ban the sales of Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones in the US market. Gao’s ban will prevent Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus devices from being sold in U.S. retail stores. As long as Apple pays approximately $96 million in guarantee money, the ban will come into effect.

Samsung submitted an appeal to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeal on Sunday, arguing that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Apple and Samsung are competitors.

For Gao Lanhui's rejection of Samsung's request, Samsung expressed great disappointment but said that it would still appeal the ban.

A Samsung spokesman said, “We believe that the results of today’s ruling will eventually lead to reduced opportunities for consumers in the U.S. market to access excellent products. At the same time, we will also work closely with Google to solve this problem. The issue of patent infringement concerned concerns Google's unified standard search function."

It is rumored that Google is releasing a software patch for its Android operating system, but the details are not yet clear.

Just this Monday, Koch made a similar decision, dismissing Samsung’s request to lift the Galaxy Tab 10.1 US ban. The tablet runs Google's Android system and is an Apple iPad competitor.

As a condition of the Galaxy Nexus sales order, Apple needs to pay a deposit of more than $95 million. If the final trial ruled that the ban is a wrong decision, Apple needs to bear any loss to Samsung.

These two bans are a major victory for Apple, and similar pre-trial bans are rarely approved.

Starting in April of this year, Google began selling Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smart phones directly to consumers. The current US$349 mobile phone, originally launched in October last year, was powered by Google’s Android 4.0 system, Ice Cream Sandwich.

This is the second victory for Apple in a series of lawsuits against Samsung's Android devices this week. On Monday, Gao Lanhui dismissed Samsung’s request for a suspension of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer sales ban in the United States.