Galaxy Nexus Ban Temporarily Lifted

It’s time yet again to update your scorecard on the Galaxy Nexus ban.

A federal appeals court ruled today that the preliminary injunction set by a lower court against sales of the device in the U.S. is being temporarily lifted.

But keep your pencil sharp — according to All Things Digital, Apple has till Thursday to submit an argument as to why the ban should be put back in place while Samsung’s appeal of it wends through the court.

Here’s the recent play-by-play:

• Last Friday, lower-court judge Lucy Koh OKed Apple’s request for a pretrial ban on the device. Apple had requested the ban against the smartphone in February, alleging that the gadget infringes on several of its patents and should not be sold while the court resolves the intellectual-property question. Koh’s ruling was a big victory for Apple — such bans are rarely granted, and the timing of this one was sweet: Google had only just announced, at its I/O developer conference, that the Galaxy Nexus would be one of the first devices to get the upcoming version of Android 4.1, dubbed Jelly Bean, when it arrives next month.
• On Sunday, as expected, Samsung appealed the preliminary ban and requested that it be temporarily lifted while the appeals court considers whether it should stand or be nixed.
• On Tuesday, Koh denied Samsung’s request for a temporary lifting of the ban, and Apple posted the $95.6 million bond required for the ban to go into effect (the bond covers losses to Samsung owing to the ban — should the eventual patent ruling go in Samsung’s favor). Also Tuesday, Google pulled the Galaxy Nexus from its Google Play store and said it was working on a software patch that would temporarily allow the Galaxy Nexus to sidestep the preliminary injunction.

And now the appeals court has temporarily lifted Koh’s preliminary injunction — and her denial of Samsung’s request for such a lifting — while it considers whether to dump the injunction all together (and until Apple makes its argument about keeping the ban in place during such deliberations). All Things D notes that there’s no timetable for how long it could take the appeals court to consider Apple’s argument for reinstating the ban while it’s on appeal.

Credit: CNET