A temporary injunction banning the sale of Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones has been overturned, a setback for Apple in its ongoing battle with the South Korean electronics giant.

 A Washington appeals court found that the California district court that issued the injunction, "abused its discretion," and sent the case back to a lower court in California for reconsideration.  "There was no evidence sales were driven by features copied from the iPhone," the court said, as reported by Agence France-Presse.

The injunction was issued at the end of June based on claims by Apple that Samsung had illegally copied features from its iPhone, in particular, Siri, the iPhone's ever-attentive virtual assistant software.

Apple must show not only that Samsung had infringed on its patent, but also that that infringement resulted in irreparable harm.

"In other words, it may very well be that the accused product would sell almost as well without incorporating the patented feature," the court said in an 18-page opinion, as reported by the AFP.

The appellate court pointed out that even though Apple had claimed Samsung infringed on patents from the Siri voice assistant, the Nexus phones had no similar feature.

Apple had previously won a jury award of more than $1 billion for patent infringement, and is seeking to ban various Samsung phones and tablets using Google's Android software, on the basis of that verdict, AFP reported. 

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