[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] ruled [order, PDF] Friday that the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] should reconsider an injunction [order, PDF] against Samsung in a patent dispute with Apple [corporate websites]. District Judge Lucy Koh issued the injunction in June against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 [product backgrounder] and declared [Reuters report] that she could not lift the injunction because Samsung had already appealed. On appeal, the Federal Circuit granted Samsung’s motion to remand the question of whether the injunction should be lifted:

We grant the motion and remand for the purpose of allowing the trial court to consider Samsung’s motion and Apple’s arguments in opposition thereto. The appeal is held in abeyance pending further ruling from the trial court. … In granting the motion, the Federal Circuit takes no position on the proceedings the trial court should employ in considering the motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction or on the merits of the motion.

It is unclear when Koh will issue a new ruling.

Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in continuous patent litigation in courts around the world. Last week Apple filed a motion [JURIST report] with the US District Court for the Northern District of California to prohibit Samsung from selling products in the US that supposedly infringe on Apple’s patents. Two weeks ago Samsung announced [JURIST report] that it will be adding the iPhone5 [product backgrounder] to a new patent infringement suit against Apple. Last week a judge for the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that Apple products do not infringe on Samsung’s patents. In August Apple won a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] against Samsung in a separate case [case materials] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit covered everything from the shape and design of the competing companies’ tablets and smartphones to the technology employed in the devices’ software interface. Following the jury award Apple moved to block [JURIST report] eight Samsung products from being produced and sold in the US. Last month a South Korean court found that Apple and Samsung had violated each others’ patents [JURIST report] and banned the sales of some of the companies’ products in the country. In July a UK court ruled [JURIST report] that Samsung tablets do not infringe on Apple’s design.