Apple wins ruling to ban US sales of Samsung tablet

Apple has won a preliminary court ruling to block the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the United States, which will take immediate effect once Cupertino posts a US$2.6 million bond to protect against damages suffered by Samsung if the injunction is later found to have been wrong, report says.

"Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products," said U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday.

It noted that this was the same judge who had previously denied Apple's bid for an injunction on the tablet and multiple Galaxy smartphones. Reuters noted that this time, however, a federal appeals court instructed Koh to reconsider Apple's request on the tablet.

Apple got another chance at an injunction last month when the U.S. Court of Appeals said Koh was incorrect in thinking that an Apple patent related to the iPad may be invalid and that Cupertino was well within its rights to ask for a ban on sales of the device.

Apple first asked to block the sale of Samsung devices back in July 2011, and is part of a longstanding legal tussle between the two tech giants.