The U.S. Court of Appeals has overturned [3] an existing ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone. It is the second ruling this month to find in favor of the Korean technology nabob in its ongoing war [4] with Apple, stating that California's district court had "abused its discretion in entering an injunction [5]."

Last week a judge lifted [6] the injunction on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1. The firm is pushing for a retrial after the original verdict in San Jose, where Apple was awarded just over a billion dollars in damages over what it saw as copyright infringement by Samsung.

Apple, who yesterday won a delay [7] on a sales ban on some of its products in South Korea, can, however, take some comfort from the fact that it has stolen [8] one of its rival's most prominent chip designers. Jim Mergard is swapping Austin, where Samsung's chip team resides--and where Apple's chips are manufactured, ironically enough--for a parking space at Cupertino.