On June 26, a U.S. judge took the side of Apple and granted Cupertino tech giant the request to ban Samsung's iPad rival tablet - the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - in America. The court stated that the Korean manufacturer competed unfairly against Apple with an infringing product.

The decision, which Samsung has branded as restrictive to the entire tablet industry, actually means that the company will be unable to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 after Apple pays a $2.6m (£1.7m) bond to protect Samsung against damages.

According to Reuters report, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, had previously denied Apple's bid for an injunction on the tablet and multiple Galaxy smartphones. However, a federal appeals court ruling forced Koh to reconsider Apple's request on the tablet.

Consequently, Apple won the preliminary injunction on Samsung's tablet. Further, the judge declared that Apple had offered enough evidence to prove that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes on some of Apple's design patents. On those grounds, Koh said, "denial of an injunction would cause Apple irreparable harm," and that "any further delay of the injunction is not justified."

Koh also added in her order, "While Samsung will certainly suffer lost sales from the issuance of an injunction, the hardship to Apple of having to directly compete with Samsung's infringing products outweighs Samsung's harm in light of the previous findings by the Court."

Running Google's Android operating system, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is seen by many as one of the main rivals to Apple's iPad, which now controls 60 percent of the tablet market, having sold 13.6 million units between January and March.

Samsung reportedly said in a statement, "Apple sought a preliminary injunction of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, based on a single design patent that addressed just one aspect of the product's overall design.

"Should Apple continue to make legal claims based on such a generic design patent, design innovation and progress in the industry could be restricted."

Meanwhile, Samsung has claimed that the injunction will not have a significant effect on business, as it has a broad range of products on sale, having launched three new tablet models last year alone.

Samsung also stated that the ruling does not affect the newly announced Galaxy Tab 10.1 2, which was unveiled earlier this year. Retailers can sell remaining stock of the older model, but the ruling does prevent new stock from being delivered to the US.

On the other hand, Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet repeated the company's previous statement on the matter saying, "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."