Apple was granted a second chance at getting Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet banned in the U.S. this week, but a federal appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling regarding three other patents.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded a design-related patent back to the district court, which must reconsider a ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab.
"The district court has not determined the extent to which Samsung would be harmed if the sales of Galaxy Tab 10.1 were [banned], and how the potential harm to Samsung resulting from entering an injunction compares to the potential harm to Apple should the district court deny interim relief," the court wrote in its decision. "Nor has the district court evaluated the public interest at stake with respect to the sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1."
Why didn't the appeals court just make a decision itself? "It is normally not appropriate for this court to make such highly factual inquiries for the first time on appeal," it said.
Today's decision stems from a December ruling from California district Judge Lucy Koh, who denied Apple's request for a preliminary injunction against four Samsung products that Cupertino claimed infringes upon its patents.
As a result, the Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G, Droid Charge, and Galaxy Tab 10.1 remained on store shelves in the United States while the two companies continued their legal battle.
In making her decision, Judge Koh said that a preliminary injunction is an "extraordinary remedy." Apple had to prove that it would suffer irreparable harm unless the Samsung products were pulled from the market, but at that point, Judge Koh wasn't convinced.
In a statement, Samsung said that Apple's demands for a preliminary injunction "lack merit."
"Samsung intends to oppose vigorously any further effort by Apple to obtain a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California," a Samsung spokeswoman said. "We look forward to a full trial on the merits of Apple's claims in July before the District Court for the Northern District of California."
"Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communication business," Samsung continued. "We continue to serve our customers and sales of Samsung products will proceed as usual."
Patent blogger Florian Mueller remarked that today's decision means that "a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the United States based on a design patent ... is now reasonably likely."
The court must consider whether Apple's design patent is valid, "which doesn't necessarily mean that it will issue a preliminary injunction, but makes it fairly likely," Mueller wrote.
He suggested, however, that Samsung might just come up with a modified Galaxy Tab tablet, like it did with the Galaxy Tab 10.1N in Germany.
"That doesn't mean that enforcement is useless: anything that Apple can force Samsung to do to make its products more distinguishable from Apple's products is a good thing for Cupertino," Mueller said. "But it's important to understand that this here won't give Apple the leverage it needs to get Samsung to settle the wider dispute on Apple's preferred terms."
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 3:30pm Eastern with comment from Samsung.